Team Enfjaar looking for some fun Down Under

MELBOURNE – Roger Varian feels there could be plenty more to come from Enfjaar as he gears up in a competitive field of 18 in the 150th renewal of the A$6 million (S$5.4 million) Group 1 Caulfield Cup (2,400m) on Oct 17.

Formerly owned by Shadwell, the now six-year-old had shown some high-class form in defeat over the past two seasons, including a fourth in the 2025 Listed Wolferton Stakes (2,000m) at Royal Ascot, before bouncing back with a dominant all-the-way success in the Group 3 Glorious Stakes (2,400m) at Goodwood on Aug 1.

That win earned him a guaranteed spot in this year’s Caulfield Cup. With his new connections keen to travel over the winter months, Enfjaar is set to face the likes of 2026’s Caulfield and Melbourne Cup hero Half Yours, as well as two fellow UK raiders, Wine Dark Sea and Starford.

“We’re very happy with him,” said Varian on the Nick Luck Daily Podcast. “He’s been there for two weeks or just over now and has settled into the Werribee quarantine.

“(Travelling foreman) George (Tregoning) is looking after him on our behalf and he’s very happy with the horse. From the footage I’ve seen, he looks great, is eating well and seems to be training well.

“The partnership bought the horse in February with a view of having a little bit of summer fun and hoping that he could just prove good enough to entertain an international campaign over the winter.

“I think when he came away with the Glorious Stakes, that race itself was a ‘win and you’re in’ for the Caulfield Cup, so that sort of sowed the seed pretty strongly.

“We contemplated Kentucky Downs which would have been a few weeks ago now but after considering everything, the Caulfield Cup was very appealing.”

A five-time winner from 16 starts, the son of Lope De Vega was tackling the 2,400m trip for the first time when scoring at Goodwood, leaving Varian with optimism that there could be more to come from his unexposed gelding.

“Hopefully there is more to come, he’s relatively low-mileage for an older horse now,” said the Newmarket trainer.

“He’s always threatened to be very good. He was a John Smith’s Cup winner as a four-year-old and he’s put up some good runs in defeat.

“I thought his effort in the Wolferton last year was eye-catching and actually, he ran well in the same race this year after just losing track position before finishing like a train (eighth).

“We were hopeful he would get the mile-and-a-half at Goodwood and he certainly did, he produced a career-best so hopefully there is more to come.”

Whilst a run in the Group 1 Melbourne Cup (3,200m) at Flemington on Nov 3 is by no means guaranteed, Varian admitted it would be tough not to roll onto the “race that stops a nation” should things go to plan at Caulfield.

“I think it’s most likely (Melbourne Cup), but we have gone out there for the Caulfield,” said the Carlburg Stables handler. “That is the priority and then we will see how we run, see how he pulls up, then obviously the Melbourne Cup is an option afterwards.

“You’ve gone a long way and if there was an opportunity to have two bites of the cherry, you would be foolish to turn that down.”

Glorious Stakes-winning jockey Ray Dawson has again been booked and has not wasted any time in visiting Enfjaar at Werribee shortly after his long-haul flight from England landed in Melbourne in the early hours of Oct 14.

“I’m tired and it is a bit colder than I thought it would be, but I am excited and I’ve just seen Enfjaar and he looks really well and ready and set for Saturday,” he said.

While many UK jockeys like Mick Kinane, Johnny Murtagh, and more recently, Tom Marquand or Billy Loughnane have made hit-and-run visits Down Under, Dawson – who is based in Dubai during the English winter – will be on his first Australian riding experience.

The last UK jockey to win the Caulfield Cup was Irish-born Pat Cosgrave, who drove the Saeed bin Suroor-trained Best Solution to a thrilling half-head win in 2018.