Moonee Valley Switch For Xtravagant

racingandsports.com.au reports: 

Star Xtravagant is now likely to open his Melbourne spring campaign at Moonee Valley to give him race experience on the Cox Plate course.

The multiple G1 winner lands in Melbourne this week and is set to compete in Flemington jump outs on August 8 after turning in some strong gallops in New Zealand in the past week.

Co-trainers Steve Autridge and Jamie Richards had Xtravagant  slated to resume at Caulfield on August 27 in the The Heath, a G3 race over 1100m, but now favour waiting another week for the Listed Chandler McLeod Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley on September 3.

Richards said it made sense to give Xtravagant a competitive look at Moonee Valley with the $3 million WS Cox Plate (2040m) at the course in October one of his major spring goals.

“He'll more than likely run in the Chandler Macleod at the Valley. I think that's where he'll kick off,” said Richards.

“It should be a good opportunity for him to get a little bit of cover and to really attack the line. He will have a little bit of weight, but it should be a confidence boosting option for him.”

Richards said Xtravagant would then run twice at Caulfield over 1400m on September 24 and 1600m on October 8 as he works towards the Cox Plate on October 22.

“To get there, he'll probably run in the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes and the Toorak Handicap,” Richards said.

“We've probably still got a couple of question marks around how far he's going to run but the way he's relaxing and working at home suggests 2000m at Moonee Valley shouldn't be a problem for him.

“We'll see how he progresses and we'll keep all our options open.”

Richards said Xtravagant had been pleasing in his work at their Matamata training base with the rising four-year-old working twice on the sand with another G1 winnerHeroic Valour  in the past week.

Last Thursday the pair worked over 800m in 52.8 seconds, running home their last 600m in 37.5 seconds, and repeated the work on Saturday with a final 600m in 37 seconds.

Autridge and Richards are celebrating their first NZ training premiership in their first full season as a partnership for Xtravagant's owners Te Akau Racing.

The duo prepared 104 winners and won 10 black type races including four G1 events with Xtravagant (2), Risque  and Heroic Valour.

Xtravagant won the G1 NZ 2000 Guineas at Riccarton and G1 NRM Sprint at Te Rapa, Risque took out the G1 1000 Guineas at Riccarton and the Heroic Valour won the G1 Diamond Stakes for two-year-olds at Ellerslie.

Autridge had previously claimed three NZ premierships when training in partnership with Graeme Rogerson. He joined the Te Akau stable when Mark Walker moved to Singapore after winning five NZ premierships.

Richards, 26, joined the Te Akau stable three years ago and stepped up to join Autridge in a partnership 15 months ago.

He is New Zealand's youngest premiership-winning trainer, taking that mantle from Mark Walker who was 31 when he claimed the first of five titles in 2003-04.

Walker trains under the Te Akau banner at Kranji and won the Singapore title in 2015.

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