Mick Price’s Victoria Derby winning colt Tarzino will make his four-year-old debut in Group 1 company confirmed for a first-up run in the Memsie Stakes 2016 next month.

Dual Group 1 winner Tarzino has been confirmed for a first-up run in next month’s Memsie Stakes 2016. Photo: Steve Hart.

Price has been weighing up Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival options for his talented son of Tavistock but has now locked in the $500,000 Group 1 Memsie Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield Racecourse on August 27.

Tarzino has won over $1.6 million in prize money already winning four of his opening 10 career starts including two Group 1s.

The first came last October in the Group 1 Victoria Derby (2500m) at Flemington and the second on March 19 this autumn gone in Sydney’s Group 1 Rosehill Guineas (2000m).

The smart youngster was last seen running fourth to Tavago at Royal Randwick on April 2 during ‘The Championships’ in the Group 1 ATC Derby (2400m) as the beaten odds-on favourite.

This coming campaign Price will keep the horse to a Victorian-only campaign starting with the Memsie, which six of the past nine editions of have been won by four-year-olds, before being stepped up to mile in the $500,000 Group 1 Makybe Diva Stakes (1600m) at Flemington on September 10.

“I didn’t want to give him a gut-buster first-up over a mile,” Price told Racing Victoria.

“He’s a pretty genuine horse and he tries very hard so I didn’t want to give him a tough run in the Makybe Diva where I would have had to have had him tuned up and then he’d have been second-up in the Underwood and I felt like I would have been playing catch up.

“He couldn’t win a 1400m Group 1 at weight-for-age I wouldn’t have thought because these weight-for-age races are never really run so that back-markers can sweep home, they usually crawl around and the best horse wins.”

Price shoots for his second Makybe Diva Stakes win having prepared the 2006 winner Pompeii Ruler for his victory a decade ago.

The Memsie Stakes – Makybe Diva Stakes double was most recently achieved by Dissident (2014).

Third-up for Tarzino, the $500,000 Group 1 Underwood Stakes (1800m) takes place back at Caulfield on September 24 and is a race Price won in 2007 with Rubiscent.

Weekend Hussler (2008) was the last Underwood Stakes winner to back-up directly off a Makybe Diva Stakes run when he completed the double eight years ago.

The fourth run Price has confirmed for Tarzino in the spring is the $500,000 Group 1 Turnbull Stakes (2000m) at Flemington on Sunday October 2 over the AFL Grand Final long weekend.

Two years ago Happy Trails (2014) improved on an Underwood Stakes fourth to win the Turnbull Stakes as a 25/1 roughie.

This year Price will use the race as a guide to whether Tarzino would go onto the $3 million Group 1 Caulfield Cup (2400m) over the mile and a half on October 15 or be saved for the following week’s $3 million Group 1 W.S. Cox Plate (2040m) at Moonee Valley.

“The Turnbull is the fork in the road, we’ll get to the Turnbull via that route and work it out from there,” he said.

Tarzino pays $17 as the second favourite in early Caulfield Cup betting behind Winx ($15) and is $26 chance in all-in Cox Plate odds also led by Chris Waller’s reigning champ Winx ($2.80).

Check out the full Group 1 Melbourne racing odds online now at Ladbrokes.com.au – home of Odds Boost!