The Jason Grimson juggernaut hits Victoria on Saturday night.
Australia’s most dominant open-class trainer will unleash his champion stayer Swayzee and rising star Minos on Saturday night’s Geelong Cup.
It’s a forerunner to Grimson having a possible five of the 12 runners in the Group 1 Victoria Cup at Melton on October 17.
“I’ll be nominating five horses and if ‘Jeff’ (Hi Manameisjeff) runs well Saturday night (at Menangle), I’d like to run them all in the Victoria Cup,” Grimson said.
Joining Swayzee and Minos amongst his nominations will be Inter Dominion winner Captains Mistress, the brilliant Dangerous and Hi Manameisjeff.
Dangerous won brilliantly first-up at Menangle last Saturday night, while Captains Mistress and Hi Manameisjeff clash in the AD Turnbull free-for-all over 2300m at Menangle this Saturday.
It will be Captains Mistress’ first start since upstaging the great Leap To Fame in that epic Brisbane Inter Dominion final at Albion Park on July 18.
“She should be leading and winning first-up from the draw (gate one),” Grimson said.
“She’s very forward and could’ve gone straight into a Victoria Cup she’s that well. She’ll certainly only have this one run before it.
“I think Cam (Hart, driver) would be really keen to use the draw to lead and hold the front this week.”
Captains Mistress’ major rival is last year’s Victoria and NZ Cup winner Kingman (gate four).
“He’d need to improve a lot on his first-up run to test her, especially from the draw,” Grimson said.
With Hart staying in Sydney to drive Captains Mistress, Grimson will drive either Minos or Swayzee at Geelong.
He had hoped James Herbertson would drive one of them, but he was committed to the Australian Drivers’ Championship series in Adelaide that night.
“Now I’ve seen the draws, I might drive Minos,” Grimson said. “I drove him myself through the Inter Dominion and he’ll be very hard to beat from that draw.”
Minos will be favourite from gate five, while Swayzee has the back row (gate nine) and is first-up since some injury issues in May.
“Swayzee would need to improve on his trials, but I drove him in the latest trial and he showed good signs,” he said. “I brought him down because he needs racing and a trip can also help bring them on.
“This will help decide whether we go to the Victoria Cup with him.”
Grimson is also hopeful Swayzee will prove himself worthy of chasing a record third NZ Cup in November.
“At this stage, Minos and Captains Mistress are booked on flights to NZ,” he said. “But I could add others like Swayzee later.
“Minos will go to the (NZ) Cup, but Captains Mistress won’t because she’s only a four-year-old mare and I think you can cook them going for a race like that.”
Although Captains Mistress still has a string of targets in NZ, starting with the Kaikoura Cup on November 2, Grimson said she could return to Victoria early in the New Year.
“There’s the big bonus to consider and the Victoria Cup is a leg of it,” he said. “If she won that, you’d have to think seriously about going back and giving her the chance to try and win it.”
To win the $1 million bonus, a pacer needs to win four of the six Victorian country cup qualifying races, plus the Group 1 Hunter Cup.
Leap To Fame went close last year, but Swayzee cost him by beating him in the Hunter Cup.
