Asva added a second major Tasmanian Cup to his trophy cabinet with a surprise victory in Wednesday’s $250,000 Group 3 Ladbrokes Launceston Cup (2400m).
The 2026 Devonport Cup winner has done little wrong this summer, apart from last start in the Hobart Cup, where he only beat one runner home after being caught wide from a bad barrier.
That performance was enough to see punters send him out as a $26 chance in Launceston, a similar price to the Hobart Cup winner, Blonde Star.
The winner wasn’t the only rough result in the Launceston Cup, with runner-up Zulu Angel a $201 chance, while defending champ, Distrustful Award ($10), was third.
The slow run affair was three seconds outside the winning time of Distrustful Award in 2025 despite a good 4-rated surface.
It’s a boilover in the Launceston Cup with Asva saluting at double figures! 💰@stanley_jett and @GTS_racing combine to take out this years edition! 👏 pic.twitter.com/oVTt2t2CLJ
— SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) February 25, 2026
“To be honest, you sit there, and you say, oh, what’s happened here,” said a stunned winning trainer, Glenn Stevenson, after the race.
With regular rider Kelvin Sanderson unable to make Asva’s Cup weight of 54kg, Victorian rider Jett Stanley was in the saddle for Wednesday’s assignment.
From barrier 3, Stanley drifted back in the field but made a winning move at the 600m mark when he went for home.
“He’s always shown the ability; it was just a matter of getting him to mature, and he’s finally grown into the horse he is,” Stevenson said of the six-year-old, who originally started his career in NSW with trainers Peter & Paul Snowden.
For Jett Stanley, the Launceston Cup victory was the biggest of his 181 career wins.
“The first half of the race was about just trying to switch him off, and fortunately enough for me, there was a three-wide line going, and I just put him into that to get him to settle,” said Stanley.
“That’s the biggest win for me in my career as a jockey, and it’s good to do it in Tassie. You guys have been very accommodating, and I’ll be coming back for sure.”
The Launceston Cup win guarantees Asva a spot in October’s Group 3 Geelong Cup, which affords the winner ballot-free entry into the Melbourne Cup, an option that Stevenson intends to target.
As he so often does on Tasmania’s biggest race days, Stevenson produced multiple winners, with Who’s In Dev ($2.05) and Agnete ($4.20) also victorious early in the program.
