Appleby hoping for better fortunes with D'bai and Setting Sail

Charlie Appleby, who last year left Australia with a Melbourne Cup on his CV, has not enjoyed such a fruitful adventure this time round, but aims to sign off with success at Sandown Hillside racecourse in Melbourne on Saturday when saddling D'bai and Setting Sail in Group events on the card.

Appleby memorably provided Britain with its first Melbourne Cup winner when Cross Counter captured the Lexus-backed showpiece 12 months ago, but that horse managed only eighth in this month's edition, while stablemate Ispolini was controversially scratched on veterinary advice.

A Group 2 winner at Meydan in January, D'bai has been off since finishing eighth in the Group 1 All Aged Stakes at Randwick in April.

He returns in the 6½f Group 3 Kevin Heffernan Stakes on Saturday and Appleby's travelling representative Chris Connett said: "He had most of the summer off, he didn't travel back from Sydney overly great.

"But he's come down to Melbourne great and he really looks like he's settled in, showing enthusiasm in his gallops.

"He's got a high level of form. He won a Group 2 at the start of the year in Dubai and his form from the win at Haydock [in June 2018] was behind some very solid horses so he can mix it with the best of them."

D'bai will be ridden in the £84,000 race by James Doyle, who also partners Setting Sail in the Big Screen Company Eclipse Stakes, a 1m1f Group 3 that carries the same purse.

Second in the John Smith's Cup at York in July, he then struck in an Epsom conditions race in August.

"We expect him to run well, he's travelled down well and we've been very happy with how he's been training," Connett, speaking to racing.com, added. "He has been a very consistent performer who's right on the cusp of being a Listed or Group 3 performer back in the UK."

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