The Harrovian (Image: Racing Photos)
Toby Edmonds has urged all lovers of a racing fairytale, not just parochial Queenslanders, to get behind The Harrovian as he bids for a place in the $5 million All-Star Mile (1600m).
Voting for the fan-fueled weight-for-age race opened on Friday and Queensland's pin-up horse is currently fifth on the voting tally with just shy of 2000 votes, trailing Arcadia Queen (4120) and Behemoth (3939).
Edmonds, who took over training of The Harrovian during the spring, said he remained cautiously optimistic that his horse won't need to rely on a wildcard to make the field.
The son of Fastnet Rock, who was formerly trained in Victoria before being purchased by Cairns trainer Steve Massingham, has won 11-consecutive races in Queensland including the Group 3 Bernborough Stakes (1600m) at his most recent start.
"There's a little bit of a push for him at the moment but not a great deal,” Edmonds said.
"He's pretty popular up here so he'll end up with a lot more votes than what he's got at the moment once it hots up a bit.
"Hopefully he can get voted in pretty comfortably.
"It'll be good for everyone if he makes it, it's good exposure for the horse and the stable and the prizemoney is great."
Edmonds confirmed his plan for The Harrovian to tackle the G1 Futurity Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield next month en route to The All-Star Mile at The Valley in March.
Jockey Brad Stewart, who is unbeaten from four rides on the seven-year-old, has been booked for both races, although he'll need to lodge a successful appeal against a careless riding suspension to ride the horse in the Futurity.
"He's had a couple of weeks at the farm and now he's back in," he said.
"We'll just go the same route we did with him when he won first-up last time, he doesn't take much work to get fit.
"He'll gallop on our course proper on Wednesday morning the reverse way to give him a bit of practice on that other leg and then he can go to Melbourne after that.
"We'll bring our own rider, Brad Stewart will ride him.
"The horse has a great will to win but can he measure up to some of the genuine Group 1 horses in the race? I guess we won't know until after the event but we're hopeful.
"He's going to get beaten at some stage and this is obviously a big step up in grade to what he's been racing against up here so he needs to lift."