The Melbourne Cup and a less-celebrated feature not so familiar to Australians have been identified as the only two target races in 2013 for the Luca-Cumani-trained Mount Athos.
Back in England after campaigning in Australia and Japan, Mount Athos will have his entire 2013 campaign dedicated at improving on his fifth placing to Green Moon in last month’s Melbourne Cup.
But Cumani has revealed a Group Three race run over 2697m in an English city close to the Welsh border will also be central to Mount Athos’s plans.
” … (owner) Dr Koukash has instructed us that he has only two objectives for the horse next year,” Cumani wrote in his website blog.
“One (is) to win the Ormonde Stakes at Chester in May and the other to win the Melbourne Cup.”
An internationally-acclaimed trainer, Cumani is still chasing his first Melbourne Cup victory after coming close with Purple Moon and Bauer.
He knows better than most that getting the right weight is central to Melbourne Cup success and he is already well schooled on the handicapper’s thoughts about Mount Athos in 2013.
“It seems likely as of now that Mount Athos will carry the same weight in 2013 as he did in 2012,” Cumani said.
“So we know he’s well up to winning the race, but we will have to tread a fine line between Chester and Flemington to ensure that weight stays as it is while doing as much as we can to win some prize money.”
In the Melbourne Cup, Mount Athos was involved in a home turn bumping duel with Americain which stalled his momentum.
He ended up passing 10 runners in a spirited finish that had Cumani both searching for superlatives and bemoaning the horse’s ill fortune.
Mount Athos disappointed Cumani with his Japan Cup effort and plans to continue to the Hong Kong Vase were shelved.
