Melbourne Cup favourite Vauban’s sparkling track gallop ahead of $8.4m race

The favourite for the Melbourne Cup, Vauban, has caught the eye of track watchers and rival trainers one week out from the great race.

Rival trainer Mick Price was left stunned with Melbourne Cup favourite Vauban’s first gallop on the hallowed turf at Flemington.

The Willie Mullins-trained Vauban arrived at the Werribee quarantine centre earlier this month and has prepared for the Melbourne Cup with multiple hard gallops around the tight track.

Mullins’ assistant trainer Dave Casey rode Vauban in a gallop with stablemate and fellow Melbourne Cup runner Absurde, clocking a sharp 23.49sec for the final 400m.

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“There will be no horse that will do more work and he had a bit of a sweat coming back into the mounting yard, as you would, it was like SAS out there,” Price, who was at Flemington to watch his Melbourne Cup hope Lastotchka, said.

“I felt tired looking at it.”

French raider Lastotchka gallops at Flemington ahead of next Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup

⁦@gilbertgardiner⁩ ⁦@FlemingtonVRC⁩ pic.twitter.com/pHlTSaZ81D

— Racenet (@RacenetTweets) October 30, 2023

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Vauban has been at the top of Melbourne Cup betting since caning his rivals by 7½ lengths in a 2816m handicap during the Royal Ascot carnival in June.

The six-year-old subsequently qualified for the Melbourne Cup with a comfortable win in a Group 3 race in Ireland in August.

🔥 VAUBAN with a monstrous performance to win the Copper Horse Handicap.

🤞 Royal Ascot glory secure, could he head to Australia for the Melbourne Cup?pic.twitter.com/hSzNE28Fd9

— Road To Cheltenham (@RoadCheltenham) June 20, 2023

Mullins went close to winning the Melbourne Cup with Max Dynamite in 2015 and 2017 but Casey said Vauban was a slightly superior galloper.

Vauban has stunned track watchers and Casey with the way he has thrived at Werribee.

International horses often lose weight on the long flight to Melbourne.

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However, Casey said he has had work to get weight off Vauban, who put his head in the feed bin as soon as he was led into his box at Werribee.

Vauban puts a space on Absurde at Flemington trackwork on Tuesday morning.

“It was a job getting weight off him because he’d put it on so quickly when he came,” Casey said.

Champion international jockey Ryan Moore will ride Vauban in the Melbourne Cup.

Moore won the 2014 Melbourne Cup aboard the German-trained galloper Protectionist.

Casey said Moore and Mullins would decide their tactics once the field is known and the barriers drawn for the $8.4 million event.

But he said Vauban was unlikely to race back in the field.

Originally published as Melbourne Cup favourite Vauban’s sparkling track gallop ahead of $8.4m race