Is there a quiet confidence Calandagan could target the Cox Plate?

Racing Victoria say they have made their pitch to connections of superstar Calandagan who are sitting on an invitation to this year’s Cox Plate, apparently made even more enticing by the fact it will be run at Flemington.

RV’s head of racing Paul Bloodworth said Moonee Valley had also made contact with connections of the French superstar, who was named the horse of the year in 2025.

‘’The Moonee Valley Racing Club having formally invited the horse for the Cox Plate this year to be run at Flemington,’’ Bloodworth told SEN Track.

‘’I spoke to Francis Graffard shortly before he won the Sheema Classic and took him through … [how] we would love to see the horse and … the team here for the Cox Plate this year.”

‘’He was very interested in the fact that the Cox Plate was being run at Flemington this year … and advised that it had been … discussed as one of the options for the horse later in the season.’’

Bloodworth told SEN Track that the multiple Group 1 winners campaign over Australia’s winter gave him confidence a Cox Plate tilt may happen.

‘’My expectation is that the horse, I think, is running in the Prince of Wales Stakes at Royal Ascot in about three weeks’ time,’’ he said.

‘’And my guess is, without them having told me this direct, that they will then make decisions on the later part of the year post that.”

‘’I think it’s interesting, and I am probably joining the dots here to suit my own purposes, but last year they went to the Coronation Cup at his second run in and then stayed at a mile and a half basically the whole year.”

‘’I think four of his five runs throughout the year were at a mile and a half.”

‘’So if they do drop back to the 2000m, I just think that might be a positive for us regarding the Cox Plate—that they’re not pushing him out to the mile and a half so early in the season.”

‘’And keeping him maybe at that slightly shorter distance to keep him in good stead and in good shape for hopefully a Cox Plate.’’