Dan O’Sullivan resisted the temptation to chase a guaranteed berth in this year’s Caulfield Cup with Berkeley Square via the Mornington Cup last Saturday and he hopes to be rewarded this weekend.
The Ballarat trainer has instead directed his interference-prone gelding to the $175,000 VOBIS Gold Heath (2000m) on the Victorian Owners and Breeders Raceday at Caulfield.
The four-year-old son of Territories added another hard-luck story to his career when a 1-1/2-length fifth in the 2000-metre Easter Cup and O’Sullivan thought he was not yet ready for 2400m and just wants to see him given every chance at Caulfield.
“If he’d had two 2000-metre runs I probably would have gone to Mornington, but he’s only had one,” O’Sullivan said.
“So I’ll go one more in the VOBIS race and hopefully it’s a big field and we don’t get in any trouble.”
Berkeley Square is one of 19 entries for the set-weights-and-penalties VOBIS Gold Heath, with last-start Golden Mile winner El Soleado headlining his list of potential rivals.
The Group 3 Easter Cup was Berkeley Square’s fourth run of the campaign and followed a second placing to Young Werther in the 1800m Australian Cup Prelude at Flemington on March 9.
Berkeley Square has not won since the Group 2 Moonee Valley Vase (2040m) as a spring three-year-old, but O’Sullivan could not be happier with the way he’s going.
He remains confident Berkeley Square is capable of acquitting himself well in spring features, but has not looked at the calendar beyond this Saturday’s race, which will be the 17th of his career.
“I think he’s going very, very good – he should have won the Group 3 the other day – so we probably should be aiming a bit higher, but we’ve just got to get a result,” O’Sullivan said.
“I haven’t looked past the VOBIS Gold race, because he needs to have a break somewhere to be a spring horse, but he’s still lightly-raced, sound and he won’t need long off.
“We’ll get through the VOBIS Gold race before we lock in what we do after that.”