Melbourne Cup winner\u00a0Half Yours\u00a0will kick off his title defence in the Makybe Diva Stakes at Flemington.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Tony and Calvin McEvoy-trained stayer is being aimed again at this year\u2019s Melbourne Cup (3200m) at Flemington on November 3.<\/p>\n
Jamie Melham\u00a0became the first female jockey to land the Caulfield and Melbourne Cup double\u00a0and will partner the stayer in Saturday\u2019s first-up assignment over 1600m at weight-for-age.<\/p>\n
There were pundits questioning Half Yours last campaign when he raced first-up in Sydney before three runs in Queensland, the last of which was in the Q22 (2200m) at Eagle Farm in June where\u00a0the gelding finished fourth.<\/p>\n
Half Yours spelled in Queensland before making his way back to the McEvoy\u00a0Flemington barn early last month to prepare for his return.<\/p>\n
Two jump-outs at Flemington have Half Yours ready for his return and Tony McEvoy said while the latest, when finishing fourth\u00a0over 1000m, may have looked disappointing, visually, the team was happy with the result.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u00a0was\u00a0really happy\u00a0with his trial,\u201d McEvoy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you put him in a 1000-metre race, he would get completely run off his legs and they ran it like a\u00a0race.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0like a normal trial and he got chasing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were\u00a0also\u00a0trials at Flemington where they finish on a bend, so\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0very hard\u00a0for horses to make ground on a bend.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst it\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0look impressive, I thought he moved well, trialled nicely and the horse is telling us\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0going very well\u00a0while\u00a0his coat is coming better by the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the data that we collate on him is normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u00a0certainly\u00a0hasn\u2019t\u00a0gone backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following Saturday\u2019s first-up run, Half Yours is expected to head to the Group 1 Turnbull Stakes (2000m) at Flemington on\u00a0October 3, a race his finished fourth in last year before going on to claim the Caulfield Cup.<\/p>\n
The Group 1 Cox Plate, this year run at Flemington, will wind up Half Yours\u2019 preparation for the Melbourne Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne Cup winner\u00a0Half Yours\u00a0will kick off his title defence in the Makybe Diva Stakes at Flemington. The\u00a0Tony and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[100156,82932,102947,51273,94502,152399,152400,260,9440,152401,152402],"class_list":["post-89137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-calvin-mcevoy","tag-caulfield-cup","tag-cox-plate","tag-flemington","tag-half-yours","tag-jamie-melham","tag-makybe-diva-stakes","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-cup","tag-tony-mcevoy","tag-turnbull-stakes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}