Brilliant Catapulted Back To Best

On a day when sizzling times were being set in Sydney and Melbourne, slick sprinter Catapulted was in his element, zooming away from a big field of 15 to win the Group 111 VRC Standish Handicap at Flemington by three lengths.

Ridden perfectly by Michael Rodd under his big weight of 59kg, the Mark Kavanagh trained son of Catbird settled just behind the leaders and then accelerated brilliantly at the furlong to record the smart time of 1.07.66 for the 1200 metres, which was half a second outside Iglesia's long-standing course record.

Mark Kavanagh said Catapulted's return to his best form was timely as he had a Gold Coast trip in mind for Saturday week's big Magic Millions meeting.

"It was great to see him back,"Kavanagh said. "He got them off the bridle a long way out and that always helps in sprint races. He is a good horse when he is right."

A $90,000 purchase for Kavanagh from the Mill Park draft at the 2007 Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale, the Rockmount pretrainer runs for a big group of owners and has the overall record of 11 wins and six seconds from 27 starts with prizemoney of $772,235.