The Michael Moroney-trained Bermadez notched his fifth career win when coming from off the speed to land the Resimax Group Plate (1200m) at Flemington on Saturday.
The five-year-old son of Tavistock was fresh-up off a small break and powered home to defeat race favourite Rose Quartz in the hands of regular rider Damien Oliver.
The lightly-raced gelding was plagued by shoulder problems earlier in his career and tends to show his best when kept on the fresh-side.
“At the halfway mark when they quickened up I thought he was getting left behind a bit, but they went another furlong and I could see that he started to pick them up. There was a good chance that he would, he’s got a good turn-of-foot late,” Moroney said.
“I thought he paraded today the best we’ve ever seen him but you never know fresh up. When I saw him here today I thought he looked in the zone and relaxed.”
Bermadez will now return to his preferred Flemington circuit on March 19 for the Mugatoo Quality Handicap (1600m), a $200,000 race on the All-Star Mile undercard, with a potential tilt at the Gr.1 Doncaster Handicap (1600m) also on the cards.
“I think he’d sneak in to the Doncaster. He’s well weighted for a race like that and that would be his chance for what that handicap would be if he got an agreeable weight,” Moroney said.
“In his younger days he looked a wet-tracker, but as he’s got older I know that Ollie rode him one day and said that he doesn’t handle it. We’d want it to dry out a bit in Sydney if we went to a Doncaster.”
Winning Jockey Damien Oliver was thrilled to post another victory on the talented galloper on whom he won the lucrative A$500,000 Melbourne Cup Carnival Country Final (1600m) in spring.
“He’s taken a bit to work out, this horse. He’s made us look like fools on more than one occasion, and being by Tavistock you’d think he could run a trip but he’s thrown more to the Anabaa side on his dam side,” Oliver said.
“Early in his prep, the shorter distances - 1200 to 1400 - he does maybe get a mile but I do like him better early in his prep fresh.
“As he gets deeper into the prep he doesn’t cope with things so well mentally. He can tend to want to overdo it.”
Bermadez was purchased out of Inglewood Stud’s 2018 New Zealand Bloodstock Book 1 Yearling Sale draft for $280,000 by Paul Moroney, who has been busy inspecting yearlings at Karaka over the past few days.
Out of the Anabaa mare Pikea, herself a sister to Group Two winner Dances On Waves, it is the family of four-time Group One winner Preferment, who stands at Brighthill Farm.
There are 12 yearlings by the late Cambridge Stud stallion Tavistock to go under the hammer at the New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sales which commence on Monday at 11am.