South Australian training duo Richard and Chantelle Jolly are taking steps to establish a stronger presence in Victoria, with a small Flemington base already up and running.
The father-and-daughter team have secured six boxes at Flemington since March and plan to build their Melbourne operation over the next 12 months. Their first winner from the new set-up came on Anzac Day when Losesomewinmore saluted at headquarters.
“We only took on a few boxes to start with as we didn’t want to take on more than we can chew,” Richard Jolly explained. “Hopefully in time we can expand and become a bit bigger, but we’re just taking small steps at the moment.”
With the Adelaide Carnival now behind them, the stable is looking to send more runners across the border. This Saturday, Aviatress will contest the Listed Straight Six (1200m), joined by Pudding in a benchmark 84 over 1800m and Star Sirius in a fillies and mares benchmark 78 over 1200m.
Jolly noted that these are the same boxes he stayed in when Russell Cameron was training at Flemington and said they now have staff in place with Kim Wells managing operations on-site.
“We’ve always got something in the stable to run over there as the higher benchmark horses run themselves out of Adelaide,” he said. “Now that we’ve got a bit of a base there, we can leave them rather than being a hit-and-run type of thing.”
Aviatress, who won the Listed Matrice Stakes (1200m) in March, will look to bounce back after finishing near the tail in the Group 1 Robert Sangster Stakes.
“She pulled-up physically fine but her blood count was a bit off,” Jolly said. “Her work has been good since and that extra week off has done her good. She could definitely bounce back.”
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