‘It’s Our Plan!’: Parchment Party Could Be Bound For Melbourne Cup After Birdstone Win originally appeared on Paulick Report.

Parchment Party could be headed ”Down Under” after winning the Birdstone Stakes on Aug. 6 at Saratoga Race Course; the 4-year-old son of Constitution earned a berth in Australia’s Group 1 Melbourne Cup earlier this year when he won the ‘Golden Ticket’ G3 Belmont Gold Cup.

“It’s our plan!” Dana Bernhard of Pin Oak Stud said on the Saratoga Live broadcast, while also teasing that fellow Pin Oak Stud runner World Beater could ship for the G1 Cox Plate after qualifying by winning the G1 Saratoga Derby Invitational.

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“We’re leaning in that direction,” trainer Bill Mott told Saratoga Live before the Birdstone Stakes. “We’re trying to make all the early plans that we need to make.”

Parchment Party qualified for “The Race That Stops The Nation” by winning the off-turf, 1 ¾-mile G3 Belmont Gold Cup by 8 ½ lengths on June 6. If he makes the trip, Parchment Party would be the first U.S.-trained horse to start in the Melbourne Cup.

“It’s quite an ordeal to get over there,” said Jim Bernhard of Pin Oak Stud to Saratoga Live. “You have to put him in for two weeks in England in quarantine, and then you gotta ship him to Australia, and he’s gotta stay in Australia for four weeks of quarantine.”

Four Belmont Gold Cup winners have run in the Melbourne Cup, but none have won. Five U.S.-bred winners have won the Melbourne Cup, most recently Americain in 2010.

Parchment Party won the 1 ¾-mile Birdstone Stakes by a length under jockey John Velazquez and paid $3.80 to win.

This story was originally reported by Paulick Report on Aug 6, 2025, where it first appeared.