Jockey Shaun McKay has elected to ride Cavallo Veloce over stablemate Langkawi in the Gr.3 Bonecrusher Stakes (1400m) at Ellerslie tomorrow. "It's been a hard decision for him, but he's always had a lot of faith in Cavallo Veloce," McKay's father Peter, who trains the pair, said.
"I just saidto him Langkawi is probably going to be the better horse once they get to the mile and beyond."
In the interim Grant Cooksley has picked up the ride on Langkawi, who has had five starts for four second placings and a win.
"Unless I'm mistaken Langkawi will be going to the Derby, but I'm starting to think Cavallo Veloce might be just a little bit better from 1200m to a mile," McKay said.
The Matamata trainer, who prepared Puccini to win the Gr.1 New Zealand Derby (2400m) in 2014, has nominated three horses for the blue-riband event in March, including Cavallo Veloce.
"We paid up because his half-brother Charles Road has been going over ground, but my gut feeling is that he'll probably be best up to a mile," McKay said. "But you never know, class three-year-olds can sometimes push it out past their limits.
"When Puccini was racing up to a mile, jockeys were coming in and saying that he was racing too fiercely and that he wouldn't get over further and then we changed his style of racing and suddenly he loved the extra distance."
Already stakes-placed on two occasions, Cavallo Veloce broke maiden ranks when winning over 1200m at Tauranga at his most recent start and McKay is pleased with his progress.
"His work has been good so we're happy with him," he said.
"The 1400m will suit him down to the ground.
"He's got a nice draw (2) and he can just take a sit ... so he'll be able to possie up just behind the leaders and then have the last say at them."
Langkawi hasn't raced since winning at Hawke's Bay in October.
"We put him out for a week or so and then he came back, and he just had a touch of a virus," McKay said.
"He's had a lot of work stacked into him because he was going to go down to Otaki last week, but when it came up a Slow8 I didn't trust the weather. As it turned out it ended up being a pretty good track, so I was kicking myself that we didn't just accept and wait until the last minute.
"He's from the same family as Puccini and he's a half-brother to Amarula who was more of a sprinter-miler, but this guy is showing me more similarities to Puccini.
McKay also prepares The Mitagator who has drawn barrier 12 in tomorrow's Dunstan Feeds 1500 Championship Qualifier (1500m).
"He's been dominant in a couple of races where he got the lead and then got away with a couple of cheap sectionals."
