Saturday test for Aberro at Moonee Valley

Brad Waters - Tuesday September 5

A tough first campaign has stood Aberro in good stead for his natural progression to Saturday grade at Moonee Valley.

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Matt Laurie will give promising three-year-old Aberro a chance in Saturday grade at Moonee Valley. Photo: Darryl Sherer

Aberro was competitive with Caulfield Guineas fancy Merchant Navy on debut before he went down narrowly to multiple city winner Eshtiraak at his first two runs last time in.

Aberro closed his autumn campaign with a reasonable effort in the Group I Champagne Stakes (1600m) in Sydney but returned with a good effort to break his maiden at Sandown on August 16.

That win left Saturday's Super VOBIS 3YO Handicap over 1509m as trainer Matt Laurie's next target in a promising campaign.

"It is a natural step to go over the 1500m and I have to run him in that," Laurie said.

"There are a few handy horses in it but he's a good horse and I wouldn't put winning past him. He got beaten by Merchant Navy in his maiden and then he arguably should have won the Mornington Sires'."

Laurie was one of the trainers that took the chance to send horses to work at Moonee Valley on Tuesday morning and the son of All Too Hard pleased the Mornington trainer with his work.

Laurie didn't clock the gallop but Racenet's Darryl Sherer timed Aberro to run 1200m in 1:25.99 while building up to run his last 400m in 24.91 seconds.

"I was very happy with him. He just strolled around by himself and he handled it pretty well," Laurie said.

"He wouldn't have run up as quickly as some of the others but he went nicely. I didn't bother clocking it."

Aberro is a half-brother to Laurie's SA Derby winner Escado and the Group II winner Se Sauver but the trainer said the Victoria Derby was a possibility some way down the track for the colt.

"It (the Victoria Derby) is certainly in the picture but we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it because I just want to make sure we've got a horse for next season and the season after," Laurie said.

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