“The worry is if they let Private Harry dawdle along up front, it could be a demolition job,” Widdup said.
“If there’s no pressure and he and Briasa get an easy run, it’s going to make it hard.
Jockey Kerrin McEvoy will ride Jedibeel on Saturday.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
“But he’s good. He wouldn’t be running if he wasn’t, and that’s why we didn’t run him the other day.”
He was confident Jedibeel had done enough work to race well on Saturday. He had two trials with Saturday’s rider, Kerrin McEvoy, aboard leading into the Concorde.
“We were able to keep him going, and he’s only running over a short distance,” he said.
“If he was a miler starting over more ground, that would be a different story.
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“It’s a hot race, and look, he probably can’t win it, but we just want to see him run well, and we can go from there.”
Mulberry Racing manager Lachlan Sheridan, the grandson of Gregg, told Sky Racing this week that if Jedibeel was disappointing on Saturday, they would likely look at other options to fill their Everest slot, but he was confident he would run well.
Widdup said there were plenty of other options, including the $2 million Everest consolation, the Sydney Stakes, to target if Jedibeel came up short of expectations.
“It’s basically see what happens, but the horse has to be in form,” he said.
“That’s from my side, not Mulberry’s. I don’t want to be running a horse in a race like that, just crawling to the line.
“He’s not far away, hopefully last time in, running at that [group 1] level has toughened him up a bit.”
Seven slots in the 12-horse Everest have been filled.
