CEJAY GRAHAM ON A MOONEE VALLEY MISSION

By Graham Potter | Friday, October 24, 2025

It could be a big night out for Cejay Graham at Moonee Valley tonight when she takes the ride on the Stirling Osland trained So You Are in the Moonee Valley Gold Cup, a race which gives the winner direct entry into the Melbourne Cup.

In a very short space of time Graham has become a fixture amongst the leading riders in Brisbane with her breakthrough season coming in 2023/24 in which she finished second in the Brisbane Jockey’s Premiership to Jimmy Orman and put a Group 2 win on her CV when partnering Kintyre to victory in the Queensland Guineas.

And she has been a stable force in the saddle ever since.

Graham has only had one ride on So You are to date … and that was a winning one, two runs back in a BM78 Handicap at Doomben on October 4.

The win was important, but it was arguably So You Are’s run immediately before that Doomben assignment, … in the Group 3 Newcastle Gold Cup … which provides more of a clue as to So You Are’s chances in the Moonee Valley Gold Cup.

At Newcastle, So You Are finished fifth … 2.27 lengths behind the winner Soul Of Spain, 1.56 lengths behind the runner-up Royal Supremacy, 1.19 lengths behind the third place-getter Travolta and 0.19 lengths behind the fourth placed Wyclif.

Since then, Royal Supremacy and Soul Of Spain finished first and second respectively in the Group 1 Metropolitan, Travolta won the Group 3 St Leger while Wyclif ran unplaced in both the Metropolitan and the St Leger.

That puts So You Are’s form in a very positive light and, although he did taste defeat in the Queensland Cup run subsequent to the Doomben win, that only came by the narrowest of margins when beaten by a real emerging prospect Walsh Bay, who was saluting there for the fifth time in a row.

Graham did not ride So You Are that day (she did not ride at the meeting) and Osland has recalled Graham for the four-year-old gelding’s most important run to date.

If nothing else, Graham’s visit to Moonee Valley will add more experience to her armoury, but that is not what she is going there for and those at Moonee Valley will probably hear the cheers all the way from Queensland and the Northen Rivers if she should get So You Are home.

That result would also, in its own way, be a nice tribute to the marvellous So You Think, the sire of So You Are, who passed away earlier this week at the age of nineteen.

So You Are’s price is currently quoted at $11 on the fifth line of betting in the fourteen-horse field.

Onesmoothoperator tops the boards in an open betting race at $4.40.

The English visitor and last year’s Geelong Cup winner, was again due to run in this year’s Geelong on Wednesday, but when that race was postponed due to the extreme wind conditions, trainer Brian Ellison scratched Onesmoothoperator from that engagement and elected to move on to the Moonee Valley Gold Cup instead.

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