By Garry Howe
Richmond star Dustin Martin made a clean sweep of the AFL’s silverware this season – with the Brownlow, Norm Smith, Jack Dyer, Gary Ayres and premiership medals all hanging around his heavily tattooed neck.
Now the Tiger great has his eye on one of Australian racing’s most sought-after trophies as a part-owner of VRC Derby hopeful Main Stage.
Martin and a few Richmond team-mates have a share in the promising three-year-old stayer, in the care of the in-form training combination of Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young at Cranbourne.
Main Stage is a 10-1 third favourite in early betting for the blue riband event to be run at Flemington on Saturday, 4 November.
“Dustin and a few of the other boys got a syndicate together,” Busuttin told the News this week. “They all came out and saw the horse a couple of months back.
“Hopefully some of the luck Dustin has had lately rubs off on the horse.
“He is running well and is shaping up as a genuine chance in the Derby.”
Main Stage won at Kilmore on 9 September and has been placed at his other three starts, including his last start at Flemington on 27 September in the Derby Trial over 1800m, beaten by a lip by the Anthony Freedman-trained Tavistock Abbey. They staged a two-horse war up the Flemington straight and finished four lengths clear of third-placed Mutameyel from the Hayes Dabernig camp.
Busuttin said Main Stage would run in the listed UCI Stakes at Flemington this Saturday over 1800 metres and would then have another run in either the Caulfield Classic or AAMI Vase before the Derby.
Main Stage was sired by the aptly-named Reliable Man – an omen if there ever was one for Martin’s growing legion of Richmond fans.
“The type of horse he is and his pedigree makes him an ideal Derby horse.”
The Busuttin-Young stable is no stranger to Derby success, with Tavago beating subsequent Caulfield Cup winner Jameka in the BMW Australian Derby 2400 at Randwick on 2 April last year at his first Australian start.
Tavago franked that form by winning the Sky High Stakes at Rosehill this autumn carnival, beating the highly-fancied Chris Waller import Antonio Giuseppe, and finished ninth in the JRA Cup at Flemington last Sunday at his second start this campaign.
He is currently 13th in order of entry for the Emirates Melbourne Cup on 7 November, but Busuttin says this may not be his year.
“He is certainly well down the pecking order for the cup,” he said. “We threw him in there as a nomination because you never know.”
Busuttin and Young look like having a tilt at the local feature, with the well-performed Anaheim likely to head towards the $300,000 TAB Cranbourne Cup on Sunday 15 October.
The recent Flemington winner mixed it in the best three-year-old company in the autumn and certainly didn’t disgrace himself, according to the trainer.
“He’s a big chance of going to the Cranbourne Cup,” Busuttin said.
