The Tony and Calvin McEvoy stable have stakes race aspirations with Silent Sovereign who commences her latest campaign at Bendigo.
The daughter of Dalakhani runs in the Bendigo Gold Bracelet (1400m) on Saturday, her first outing since finishing towards the tail of the field at Caulfield in November.
Tony McEvoy is expecting the 1400m journey to suit Silent Sovereign fresh on Saturday while also noting there will be improvement to come from the mare.
“She’s a good mare, a really good mare, and she’s good fresh,” McEvoy said.
“I think she’s going really well. She looks a bit bigger and stronger to me, but she’ll definitely be improved by the run.
“But she is going well enough to give a good account of herself.”
Silent Sovereign only had four starts during her last campaign with her preparation hinged around a start in the Listed Ballarat Cup (2000m) last November.
Unfortunately, Silent Sovereign did not make the cut for the Cup and ran in the “Cup consolation”, taking out the Benchmark 84 race.
She ran quicker time than the Cup carrying more weight, a fact not lost on McEvoy.
Following her Ballarat outing, Silent Sovereign backed up a week later to finish second-last behind Sound in the Group 2 Zipping Classic (2400m) at Caulfield.
“Backing her up was a bit of an ad-hoc thing to do and it didn’t work,” McEvoy said.
Silent Sovereign won the Group 3 Auraria Stakes (1800m) at Morphettville as a three-year-old and McEvoy would like to add some more ‘black type’ to her page as an older mare.
The Listed Centaurea Stakes (2000m) at Morphettville on May 21 is the race McEvoy is targeting.
“I think that would be a nice race for her,” McEvoy said.
“We’ve got time to give her another run after Bendigo and to see how we’re going.”