Victoria will be pinning its hopes on the most unlikely of aspirants this Saturday, as the focus of the racing world turns to Brisbane for the running of the Doomben 10000.
My Quest For Peace will be making his debut for Victoria’s premier trainer Peter Moody in the Group 1 1350m event after campaigning through last year’s Spring Carnival for master trainer Luca Cumani.
The European bred son of Galileo was brought to our shores by OTI Racing for a tilt at our springtime riches on the back of a string of impressive black-type victories as a four-year-old in England.
After an impressive 1.5L fifth in his Australian debut behind Dunaden in the Caulfield Cup, My Quest For Peace failed to break Cumani’s Cup curse, grinding home to finish tenth behind Green Moon in the Melbourne Cup.
His return to the track has been a bumpy one, with a lung infection ruling him out of a tilt at both the Melbourne and Sydney Autumn carnivals, effectively forcing the trainers hand to trek up north in pursuit of one preparation before the Spring Carnival.
Yet Moody remains bullish about his import’s chances, despite the setback.
“He’s a really nice horse. He’s certainly a stayer but I think he might be able to pull one out fresh over the sprint trip,” Moody said.
“There are no races anywhere else for him at this time of year.
“I just wanted to give him a run or two and tick him over before the spring carnival, but I do think he will run very well fresh.”
A winner of five of his twelve starts to date, My Quest For Peace has never won at less than 2011m, and from the outside gate of eleven seems to have his work cut out for him first up.
The five-year-old will be following a similar path to another OTI Racing import in Manighar, who also joined Moody Racing after a Spring campaign in the care of Luca Cumani.
After running fourth and fifth in the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups respectively, Manighar blitzed a sharp field in the 1600m Carlyon Stakes, showing an unforseen turn of foot to easily record his first win on Australian shores.
Luke Nolen was pilot that day and believes My Quest For Peace possesses the same attributes that should prove him more than competitive this Saturday.
“In my experience – and I’ve had a fair bit of it with these European horses that make Australia home – of all the horses I’ve experienced, he possesses the nicest turn of foot,” Nolen said.
“He’s a really nice horse. If he gets the right run on Saturday, I think he’s a sneaky (chance). He’s trained up nicely for this and these are the only logical races around for a horse of his class at this time of year.
“We might as well enjoy the sunshine with him and have a throw at the stumps. They are racehorses, they’ve got to go around and it was too far away from the Spring not to have a crack at least.”
My Quest For Peace certainly has an imposing record when resuming winning two and placing top three in their other three of five first-up runs, and will certainly be among a bevy of runners tried to upstage recent runaway winner of the BTC Cup, Your Song.
While he certainly has a task ahead of him, it would be foolish to disregard My Quest for Peace to soon.
We are well versed in the ways of the Moody/Nolen quinella in Melbourne, and there would be nothing sweeter for the pair than to cause a group one boil-over on their home turf.
Daniel Miles can be found on Twitter @danielmiles90
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