Fresh Eliyass right for G1 Champions Stakes assault

Having centred their spring thoughts around the Melbourne Cup with Eliyass, Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott decided to change direction after contesting another spring feature.

Now the Group 1 Champions Stakes (2000m) at Flemington on Saturday is the focus for Eliyass.

French-bred and having done his early racing in the country of his birth, Eliyass joined the Waterhouse and Bott stable late last year.

Elliyass was not produced until midyear when stepped out over 2000m, a trip he was successful over at Rosehill in June with victories also coming in the Group 3 Premier’s Cup and Group 3 Kingston Town Stakes, both at that trip.

That made it three wins from as many starts at the trip, and rightly, or wrongly, connections started having thoughts of the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups with the gelding.

Elliyass showed those dreams were well-placed when he stepped out on a wet track at Flemington and chased home Via Sistina and Buckaroo in the Turnbull Stakes (2000m).

From there it was Caulfield Cup bound, and with good reason, but after tracking the speed, Eliyass weakened in the run home to finish seventh, almost 10-½ lengths astern of the winner.

That run convinced Waterhouse and Bott that stretching Eliyass to 3200m of the Melbourne Cup at this stage of career was not the right direction to be heading.

“We had him on a Melbourne Cup path, but after the Caulfield Cup run, we just felt it might not be the right stage, so we’ve decided to bring him back to that 2000 metres,” Bott said.

“He’d obviously been very effective at that trip before, and you go back to his run in the Turnbull and his form had been the right form going into it and I thought he was very good on that day.

“We thought it probably wasn’t the right timing to be pushing onto the Melbourne Cup at that stage of his career after the Caulfield Cup, so looking at the other options that were around for him, this looked to be a logical target.”

In the time since Eliyass contested the Caulfield Cup, Bott said the gelding had freshened up nicely for Saturday’s assault.

Trips to the beach and a gallop at ‘Breakfast with the Best’ last week has the gelding ready to run well and hopefully turn the tables on Via Sistina.

“We’ve had plenty of time since the Caulfield Cup to freshen him and we made the decision pretty quickly off the back of that run,” Bott said.

“That allowed us the chance to bring him back and freshen him up.”