Hayes confident Mr Brightside spot-on for Memsie
Mr Brightside (NZ) (Bullbars) hardly turned heads in his final public hit-out before his return from injury in next Saturday’s Gr.1 Memsie Stakes at Caulfield, but connections had seen it all before.
Mr Brightside, who has not run at all this year due to a fetlock issue, was again partnered with stablemate Café Millenium in a special gallop between races at Sandown on Saturday and again he failed to beat his lower-rated mate to the line.
“People don’t see him (Mr Brightside) in trackwork,” co-trainer Ben Hayes later pointed out. “He’s always been a big, lazy horse so we’re never really that confident going into races because he leaves it all for race day. He wakes up race day.
“For him that was nice work. Café Millenium has been his work partner the whole way through this prep, and I don’t think he’s (Mr Brightside) beaten him once.
“Craig (Williams) never rides him in trackwork, and he was a little bit surprised as well as to how lazy he was and that’s the reason he doesn’t ride him in trackwork.
“We are very happy as we got exactly what we wanted. This will have him spot-on heading towards the Memsie and I thought he’d come on again today walking around the mounting yard.
“He has been off the scene for a while, so he’s had a couple of good hit-outs and it’s probably the most forward we’ve ever had him for his first-up run so he’ll be there on race day and he’ll run well.
“He’s nearly down to his race weight. He did put on a lot of weight in his holiday, but it has slowly come back over the last couple of weeks and that gallop should have him around where we want him.
“He’s got a better coat than this time last year and it’s probably the soundest he’s been for a while.
“He’s had a lot of horses try to catch him and hopefully he can still do it as a nine-year-old.”
“Evaporate, we are going to run him in the So You Think (Stakes) to hopefully get his confidence up with an eye to going to the Sir Rupert Clarke (1400m) or going out to the Toorak (1600m) again.”
