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Busy trainer Tony McEvoy will fly into Sale on Sunday confident of achieving a double that probably could not be matched in racing.
Last year he won the $150,000 Eastcoast Plumbtec Sale Cup (1600m) with Mouro, and if Sysmo wins the race on Sunday he would not be the first trainer to win a major provincial Cup in successive years.
But Mouro was the first McEvoy-trained horse ever to race at Sale and Sysmo will be only his second runner at the track.Can a trainer win Sale’s biggest race in consecutive years with the only two horses he has raced there? Surely it would be an un-matched achievement.
McEvoy said he was 100 per cent confident that Mouro would win the Sale Cup last year and he has the same confidence that Sysmo can win the race on Sunday.He was not daunted when Sysmo drew barrier 14 in the 16-horse field on Thursday.
“I am 100 per cent confident,’ the trainer said. “Sysmo is a very good horse.”McEvoy said Sysmo had broken down and required surgery on two occasions.
“Now he is as good as I have had him,” he said.Sysmo, a six-year-old bay gelding, has raced 19 times for four wins and eight placings. He had two barrier trials before a first-up fourth of nine runners over 1400m at Randwick on October 11.
Last spring he won the Seymour Cup (1600m) before finishing third over 1600m at Flemington.Sysmo also won at Morphettvile in 2012 and Canterbury last year.
He is French-bred and began his career in France where he had a win and two placings from only three starts.McEvoy said he was not concerned that Sysmo, who has the second highest weight of 56kg, would go into the Sale Cup with only one run and two trialsbehind him after a 38-week spell.
“He was second-up when he won the Seymour Cup last year,” he said.He said the next race for Sysmo would be the $1 million Emirates Stakes (1600m) at Flemington on November 8.
Sysmo will be ridden by McEvoy’s nephew Kerrin McEvoy who sought the mount after riding the horse in a trial.The top weight with 58.5kg is Sonntag who has not raced since winning the $500,000 Queensland Derby (2400m) in June.
Sonntag will have a light spring campaign as connections have the Sydney Cup next autumn as the long-range target for the four-year-old.Trainer Henry Dwyer said the Sale Cup and the G3 Eclipse Stakes (1800m) would be the only two spring runs for Sonntag before he was spelled.