{"id":44844,"date":"2025-08-05T05:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T05:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/44844\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T05:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T05:09:14","slug":"vandyke-has-victorian-group-1-mission-for-first-time-since-alligator-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/44844\/","title":{"rendered":"Vandyke has Victorian Group 1 mission for first time since Alligator Blood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philia was an excitement machine during the Queensland winter carnival, winning four on the bounce and starting favourite for the Group 1 Queensland Oaks (2200m) where she endured a tough run and was beaten 2.5 lengths.<\/p>\n

Group 2 winner Philia has now returned to Vandyke\u2019s Sunshine Coast stable and the astute trainer will aim her at races in her sweet spot of 1600m-2000m.<\/p>\n

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Vandyke and connections had been weighing up a potential mission to Sydney for the riches of the $10m Golden Eagle, but the decision was made that she will head to Melbourne. <\/p>\n

READ: ‘Sobriety is the key to everything I do’: Every day is a victory for Vandyke<\/a><\/p>\n

Mindful that Philia had a busy winter, Vandyke will give her a light spring campaign with the plan to then unleash her in some big races during the 2026 autumn.<\/p>\n

However, he has revealed that the $1m Group 1 Empire Rose Stakes over 1600m at Flemington during the Melbourne Cup carnival is a key spring goal.<\/p>\n

Flemington was where Vandyke won the 2020 Group 1 Australian Guineas with Alligator Blood when he trained the now retired seven-time Group 1 winning superstar at the start of the galloper\u2019s magical career.<\/p>\n

READ: Stable switch: Exciting Queensland filly bound for Victoria<\/a><\/p>\n

Vandyke doesn\u2019t think he has had a Melbourne runner since the Alligator Blood adventure, but is looking forward to deploying frontrunning type Philia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to give her a fairly light spring, she was up a long time going into the winter carnival,\u201d Vandyke said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just hop on a plane at Brisbane Airport and she is there pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cPotentially, she will have one run and then into the Empire Rose.<\/p>\n

\u201cSydney was certainly a consideration, but we ended up making the call to go to Melbourne.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kerrin McEvoy developed a strong association with Philia during the winter carnival and was impressed at every step of her winter journey.<\/p>\n

Vandyke says Philia, now four, is back in his stable and had bulked up after a six-week break.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe will have a couple of runs in spring and then we will look at giving her a good, strong autumn campaign,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has had a good six weeks off and she has come back a lot stronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will look at targeting races from a mile to 2000m for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think less than a mile is suitable for her and I don\u2019t know about more than 2000(m) at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early betting markets on TAB fixed odds, Fangirl is the $4.50 favourite for the Empire Rose Stakes and Philia is rated a $26 chance.<\/p>\n

Originally published as Queensland trainer David Vandyke eyes Victorian Group 1 mission for the first time since Alligator Blood<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philia was an excitement machine during the Queensland winter carnival, winning four on the bounce and starting favourite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[25543,428,7614,25557,12527,25546,25558,25545,25554,25544,25547,25560,25551,25556,25549,8216,7618,8050,5017,25550,12029,8030,12035,3004,25548,101,25553,9768,25552,25555,56,54,55,5536,25559],"class_list":["post-44844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-astute-trainer","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-autumn-campaign","tag-ben-dorries","tag-brisbane-airport","tag-carnival-goal","tag-david-vandyke","tag-empire-rose","tag-excitement-machine","tag-exciting-mare","tag-exciting-queensland-mare","tag-kerrin-mcevoy","tag-key-spring-goal","tag-light-spring","tag-melbourne","tag-oceania","tag-punters-racing-queensland","tag-queensland","tag-queensland-trainer","tag-racenet-group-1-racing","tag-racenet-racing-queensland","tag-racenet-vic","tag-racing","tag-retired-seven-time-group","tag-sports","tag-spring-carnival","tag-sunshine-coast","tag-targeting-races","tag-trainer-david","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-victoria","tag-winter-carnival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}