Bavicia brilliant
Lightly raced Bavicia confirmed his staying potential thrashing his rivals at Sportsbet Sandown Hillside on Wednesday, February 28.
Given a perfect ride by jockey Luke Currie, who had Bavicia behind the speed to the home turn, the gelding exploded in the home straight dashing clear to win the Evergreen Turf Handicap (1800m).
Trained by Tony & Calvin McEvoy, the four-year-old has always shown staying promise and last year the trainers thought enough to run him in the Listed Morphettville Guineas (1800m) at Morphettville, but he was still immature.
Given a break of 10 months, Bavicia resumed at Bendigo on February 11 and ran home strongly to finish fifth over 1600 metres in a Benchmark 64.
At Sandown Hillside, Bavicia, well backed at $3.40, showed the improvement from that run dominating the Benchmark 64 handicap winning by 3-1/4 lengths from Castel Trosino ($13) with Aussie Nation ($12), 1-3/4 lengths away third.
Trainer Calvin McEvoy was impressed by the ease of Bavicia’s win.
“That was fantastic,” McEvoy said.
“He’s a horse that has been building up well, and a horse we think has a really good future when he gets out to trips, and even further than today.
“He was a big immature horse earlier and we had to give him time for his soundness.
“I think the owners Cliff (Little) and Shane (Carroll) are going to reap the rewards now.
“He’s a horse we bought from the Breeze Ups in New Zealand, and he has always shown us decent ability.
“I think he is fully mature now and ready to show everyone his ability.
“His peak figure was over the 2000 metres last prep but today we had the confidence at 1800 metres he would be winning.
“After such a long time off he has got so much improvement to come, we want to build him through the grades and get him over a bit further.”
Winning jockey Luke Currie said the win had been “pain free.”
“He jumped well, and we always thought from the draw to be a bit more positive today,” Currie said.
“He was able to tuck back in behind the leaders easily.
“It was a case of waiting to pull the trigger behind a moderate tempo.
“He came out and quickened up really well.”