Monday 15th October 2007
Fanshawe eyes Challenge Stakes prize
Cesare wins The Britains Got Talent Paradise Stakes at Ascot. Picture by Steve Cargill
CESARE is to be eased in grade and trip this Saturday when he’ll contest the VC Bet Challenge Stakes at Newmarket.
The six-year-old Machiavellian gelding was fourth – beaten a length and a quarter - to Ramonti in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot last month.
Newmarket-based trainer James Fanshawe is happy with his charge and is ready to roll the dice in the seven-furlong Group 2 on the NatWest Rowley Mile.
It will be the first time Cesare has been campaigned over the distance since finishing fifth to Sleeping Indian in a Listed race at Newbury in September 2006.
Fanshawe said: “Cesare has had a long year but we are going to try him back over a furlong shorter than he has been running over. He seems in good form and any rain will help him.”
The master of Pegasus Stables is also planning to run Zidane on Saturday with the progressive five-year-old in line for a tilt at the Igloos Bentinck Stakes, a Group 3 over six furlongs.
Fanshawe said: “Zidane ran a very good race to finish fourth (to Haatef) in the Diadem Stakes last month. He has come out of his Ascot race well and will go for the Bentinck Stakes.”
Fanshawe also outlined that no final decision has been made about whether Aphorism tackles the Totesport Cesarewitch on Saturday or contests a handicap at Nottingham two days earlier.
By Tony Rushmer
