Lord Fandago dances into the Caulfield Cup
BENNALLA Gold Cup winner Lord Fandango will hunt for a third-straight win in next week’s Caulfield Cup after rampaging home in the Group Two Herbert Power Stakes.
After settling towards the back of the field from an inside draw, a proactive Ben Allen decided to round the field prior to the turn and the horse delivered a terrific turn of foot at the head of the straight to hit the front at the 200m mark and streak away from the field to return $12.50 at William Hill.
Wall Of Fire ($3.20 at Sportsbet) closed rapidly down the outside but ran out of track to finish within a length of the eventual winner while Gallic Chieftain came hard alongside the second-placed horse to return $1.70 at Crownbet.
Lord Fandango now looks set to run in the Caulfield Cup as a $34 hope at Ladbrokes to take out group one feature.
Trainer Archie Alexander said the team came to Caulfield knowing their horse was a winning chance following a strong performance in the Benalla Gold Cup.
“Yeah I did,” Alexander said when asked if he was confident of a win on Saturday.
“He he’s a horse that stays really well.
“Over 2000m he’s not even getting warm and today, 2400m, the Lloyd Williams’ horses really set it up for him with a strong pace up for him and it was just perfect.”
The four-year-old was as long as $401 at Ladbrokes for next week’s feature at Caulfield after the breakthrough Benalla Gold Cup win, but following the Herbert Power Stakes success the online bookmakers have been forced to wind the horse right in.
Alexander confirmed that Lord Fandango will run in the Caulfield Cup.
“We haven’t really spoken about what we’re going to do, but you’d have to think if we give him an easy week he’s got to go into the Caulfield Cup with a great chance with the light weight.
“He’s in great form and just looking at him today he looked an absolute picture so I’d say it’d be pretty hard to hold the owners back.”