Royale looking to build on maiden win in Stutt Stakes

The Tony and Calvin McEvoy team is looking to build on the breakthrough win of Rue De Royale when he heads to a Stakes race at Moonee Valley.

After securing his maiden victory at Bendigo on September 8, Rue De Royale heads to The Valley on Friday night to run in the Group 2 Stutt Stakes (1600m).

It took to start number nine for Rue De Royale to finally breakthrough for a win, but the colt by Per Incanto has already proven a valuable commodity for connections, collecting just shy of $700,000 in prize money.

Rue De Royale ran second in the Golden Gift at Rosehill last spring, second in the Inglis Millennium at Randwick in the autumn along with running second in the Group 2 VRC Sires’ Produce Stakes (1400m) at Flemington in March.

He also collected prize money when finishing 12th in the Group 1 Golden Slipper at Rosehill.

The form from Rue De Royale’s maiden win, the second start of his current campaign, has since been vindicated with the third-placed Plymouth winning at Bendigo on Wednesday.

Tony McEvoy said he is looking forward to Rue De Royale returning to The Valley having finished fourth at the course on debut last October.

“He’s been to The Valley and ran in the (Inglis) Banner there, and he’s also galloped there very well,” McEvoy said.

“He actually galloped there with Veight before his first-up run and he has trained on well since the Bendigo win.

“We’ve really stepped his work up and it was so nice to see him dominate that very good maiden.”

Friday night’s race could shape the immediate program for Rue De Royale who holds a nomination in the Group 1 Caulfield Guineas (1600m) on October 19.

Longer term, Rue De Royale could return to New Zealand, his country of birth, for a new slot race, the $3.5 million The NZB Kiwi, a race restricted to three-year-olds over 1500m at Ellerslie in March.