Red Cadeaux will emulate Irish legend Vintage Crop if he wins the 2011 Melbourne Cup.

Trainer Ed Dunlop is contemplating an Australian campaign after Red Cadeaux cantered home by nine lengths in the G2 Curragh Cup last Saturday.

Vintage Crop won the 1993 Curragh Cup and the Irish St Leger before his ground-breaking victory at Flemington.  He went back and won the Curragh Cups in 1994 and again in 1995 before a second and third trip Down Under.

Red Cadeaux (5g Cadeaux Genereux – Artisia by Peintre Celebre) firmed into 25-1 for the Melbourne Cup and Dunlop is warming to the idea of bringing him here.  “The Melbourne Cup could be just the right type of race and I think we would all have a lot of fun out there.  The more I watch the video of the Curragh Cup, the more I’m impressed.

“He’s a middle-distance horse with a turn of foot and that is what you need for Melbourne.  We could have a crack at the Irish St Leger en route, though his programme will be determined by the ground.”

Red Cadeaux’s rating was bumped up to 110 after the last-start runaway and that’s increased the chances of him making the cut for the Cup.  

Owned by Hong Kong-based Ronald Arculli, Red Cadeaux was a 55,000gns buy for agent Charlie Gordon-Watson at the 2007 Tattersalls October yearling sale.  

His sire Cadeaux Genereux had been represented by 62 stakes winners world-wide by the time he died last November.  The best of his gallopers in this part of the world has been Hugs Dancer.  

The OTI import defeated Elvstroem in the 2004 Craiglee Stakes at Flemington but was unplaced in all three Melbourne Cups won by Makybe Diva.

Red Cadeaux’s dam Artisia was placed over 1600m in a light career.  She is from a daughter of Al Bahathri, a G1 winner of the Irish 1000 Guineas and Coronation Stakes for Sheikh Hamdan.