MV On Track 2018

20 ON TRACK MAGAZINE McEvoy will be looking on in the stands this year as Winx bids to make history with a fourth Cox Plate triumph. “Unfortunately, my squad is a bit too young so I don’t think we will be taking the mare on,” he says with a grin. He might not be taking on the wonder horse as she bids to land an unprecedented fourth Cox Plate, but that doesn’t mean McEvoy will not be a big player at The Valley during the spring, particularly with his star sprinters and rising three-year-olds. Sunlight, his crack three-year-old filly, has already earned a fortune for her connections with victories in the Magic Millions at the Gold Coast, the Group 3 Magic Night Stakes and Group 2 Silver Slipper in Sydney, a third-place finish in the Golden Slipper itself and returned in winning form this Spring. She will be hard to beat in anything she takes part in during the spring, with good fillies’ races at The Valley or even a tilt at the older horses in contests like the Group 1 Charter Keck Cramer Moir Stakes or Group 1 Ladbrokes Manikato Stakes. After all, a three-year-old filly in She Will Reign succeeded in the Moir Stakes last year and a three-year-old colt, Extreme Choice, got the prize 12 months before that. Of course, were any of his up and comers to head to the Manikato Stakes they would have to dethrone reigning champion Hey Doc, a real star of the McEvoy squad for several years now. Now a five-year-old gelding, Hey Doc sprang a 20-1 surprise in the Group 1 race last year, when he saw off In Her Time and Malaguerra. But the son of Duporth was no stranger to success at the highest level, nor triumph at The Valley. As a three-year-old he had won the Group 1 Australian Guineas at Flemington in the autumn of 2017, and in the spring of 2016 had landed two races at The Valley, a three-year-old handicap over 1500 metres and the Group 2 Stutt Stakes. “Sunlight had a great two-year-old career and we are hoping for great things from her. My three-year-olds turning four-year-olds are mile to 2000m horses, but I don’t think they are Cox Plate horses,” McEvoy says with a laugh. At least not yet. “They are nice young horses on the up… Overexposure ran very, very well in Adelaide in the autumn. He has a nice race in him. “Hey Doc, he won the Manikato Stakes and has been very good there in other races at The Valley. He’s going for it again. I have enjoyed The Valley, my horses race well there and I am a fan of the course, that’s for sure.”