In-form South Australian sprinter Behemoth scored a convincing win in the 2020 Group 1 $750,000 Memsie Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield today.
Behemoth, above, is the winner of the 2020 Memsie Stakes at Caulfield. Photo by Jenny Barnes.
Behemoth was coming off a last start win in the Group 3 $120,000 Spring Stakes (1200m) at Morphettville and was well supported in the betting to be sent out as the $3.30 favourite.
Winning jockey Craig Williams had Behemoth in the perfect position in fourth and fifth spot just behind the leaders and the David Jolly trained sprinter had no trouble stretching out in the straight to record a one and a half lengths win.
The Phillip Stokes trained Mr Quickie ($14) flashed home from back in the field to claim second spot while the Peter Moody trained three year old Glenfiddich ($6) did a great job against the older horse to battle on for third.
One of the more fancied runners for the Memsie Stakes, the James Cummings trained Savatiano, was a late scratching at 3.03 pm on vet’s advice.
Williams collected his 60th Group 1 win on Behemoth, who only cost $6000 as a yearling and now has earned in excess of $1.3 million in prizemoney.
“His form and his record, he only had two runs in the Autumn, and his whole idea was to build up to the Spring,” Williams said.
“I was delighted on his first up performance. Tod Pannell gave me a real good report about how he felt.”
“David (Jolly), who has a great handle on these horse, said ‘Craig, this is a different horse than when you first rode him at Moonee Valley and also in Adelaide a year and a half ago’, and he surely delivered today.”
“I was able to utilize a good barrier and he was quite dominant and did a really good job off a hot speed today.”
