{"id":16926,"date":"2017-05-20T07:39:35","date_gmt":"2017-05-20T07:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/?p=16926"},"modified":"2017-05-20T07:39:35","modified_gmt":"2017-05-20T07:39:35","slug":"big-weight-cant-halt-de-little-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/2017\/05\/20\/big-weight-cant-halt-de-little-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"Big weight can’t halt De Little Engine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beach life is agreeing with De Little Engine<\/strong> (Encosta de Lago x Arapaho Miss)\u00a0after he notched successive staying race victories at Flemington.<\/p>\n

After winning over 2800m a fortnight ago, De Little Engine added the Listed Andrew Ramsden Stakes (3200m) to his record on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Ridden by Daniel Moor, De Little Engine was sent out the $3.20 favourite before scoring a 4-1\/4 length win from Mujadale ($8), with Like A Carousel ($21) 1-3\/4 lengths away third.<\/p>\n

Trainer Danny O’Brien said De Little Engine and stablemate Second Bullet have thrived in training at his Barwon Heads property, away from the hustle and bustle of city life.<\/p>\n

De Little Engine made his return to the Flemington stable on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

“We’ve changed things up this campaign,” O’Brien said.<\/p>\n

“He’s been doing a lot more beach work which seems to suit the older horses.<\/p>\n

“He and Second Bullet have spent the whole autumn down there.<\/p>\n

“They’ve always been good horses but they’ve found a length or two this autumn.”<\/p>\n

O’Brien said Saturday’s race, run over the same course and distance as the Melbourne Cup, looked De Little Engine’s race despite the gelding having to carry 58.5kg.<\/p>\n

“It’s never as easy as it looks but to be fair in the run it looked pretty painless,” O’Brien said.<\/p>\n

Providing De Little Engine comes through Saturday’s race unscathed, he may head to Sydney for the Stayer’s Cup (3200m) at Randwick on June 10.<\/p>\n

“This is probably his standard,” O’Brien said.<\/p>\n

“We ran him through the spring but it just keeps getting tougher and tougher for the local horses.”<\/p>\n

Moor said he was conscious of De Little Engine’s weight and wanted to give him as easy a path as possible.<\/p>\n

He was able to give the six-year-old a soft run until the 800m where he started to improve.<\/p>\n

“The most exciting part was when I came out,” Moor said.<\/p>\n

“I then had to wait a while to make my run.<\/p>\n

“He’s a tough little horse and it’s a credit to the stable as he’s been up for so long.<\/p>\n

“He deserved the win today.” -AAP<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beach life is agreeing with De Little Engine (Encosta de Lago x Arapaho Miss)\u00a0after he notched successive staying race victories at Flemington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/De-Little-Engine-Flem.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16928,"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16926\/revisions\/16928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amarinafarm.com.au\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}