Growing Australian-based racing syndicate OTI are on the hunt yet again for that champion stayer to win the world’s richest handicap having purchased a quartet of new European thoroughbreds that will be aimed at the 2013 Melbourne Cup this spring.

They had a strong contingent of gallopers present at last year’s Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival and it will be a similar story in 2013 with four more hopefuls being prepared for the big spring cups double including of course the $6.2 million Group 1 Emirates Melbourne Cup (3200m) run at Flemington Racecourse on the first Tuesday of November.

Two stakes winners are among the four now OTI-owned gallopers including four-year-old French runner Mobaco who is a Group 3 winner over 2000m back home.

The other black type winner in the mix is then Montjeu four-year-old Only A Pleasure, a nice looking bay stallion who posted a Listed win over 3000m in Europe and who will stay with trainer Andre Fabre.

Ace European horseman Luca Cumani who has twice prepared a Melbourne Cup runner-up with Purple Moon (2007) and Bauer (2008) will then train Mobacao along with fresh Irish gelding Moldowney.

Cumani’s former assistant Ed Walker will prepare the fourth recent Melbourne Cup 2013-bound acquisition for OTI, Cape Cross four-year-old Ruscello.

While they are progressive types with the Caulfield – Melbourne Cups on the cards, OTI Racing Director Terry Henderson said Ruscello and Moldowney still had a far way to go ahead of the first leg of the double – the $2.5 million Group 1 BMW Caulfield Cup (2400m) on October 20.

“We’ve still got a long way to go with Moldowney and Ruscello because they are lower rated horses but they are still nice young types,” he said.

He is more optimistic about Mobaco who has shown plenty of promise to date including a blistering turn of foot.

“It’s still early days, Luca has him in work at the moment and we hope to get him to the races around April-May,” Henderson said.

“We purchased him around October last year, he’s a nice horse but he’s probably still only a 51.5kg type horse so he’ll need to lift his rating a little to get him up in the handicaps.”

It is a similar story for Only A Pleasure who will also likely need to lift their ratings over the coming months to earn a start in the capacity 24-horse Melbourne Cup field.

“We’ve also purchased Only A Pleasure who is rated around 106 and would probably get 52kgs (in the cups),” Henderson said.

Before heading down under for the spring connections will take Only A Pleasure on Dubai World Cup Night for the Group 3 Dubai Gold Cup run over the same 3200m as the iconic Melbourne Cup.

“He will head to Dubai for the two-mile race on Dubai World Cup night but his main target is the Melbourne Cup with Andre Fabre,” Henderson confirmed.

2013 Melbourne Cup nominations will be taken in early September.

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