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By Ray Hickson

Trainer Adrian Bott is hopeful Thursday’s Grafton Cup can provide a preview of things to come with consistent import Bear On The Loose.

Trainer Adrian Bott (Pic: Grant Guy)

The lightly raced five-year-old hasn’t won since his Australian debut in June last year but four seconds from his last five starts, his past two at a mile and a half, tell Bott he’s not far away from a breakthrough.

Two of the past three Grafton Cup winners have gone on to win Group 1 races, Arapaho (2022) and Deny Knowledge (2024), but Bott is keeping the bar lower with Bear On The Loose at this stage of his career.

“At this stage he’s probably best placed in these off season Cups,’’ Bott said.

“I don’t think he’d be able to turn around and be a spring prospect this year and there’s plenty of nice races over the summer as well.

“Maybe in another 12 months’ time he might develop into a carnival type horse.”

Bear On The Loose, $4.80 with TAB on Tuesday, has been runner-up in the Winter Cup and Caloundra Cup at his past two starts - he found himself in an awkward spot shuffled back on the fence in the latter.

While he was ultimately no match for Half Yours at Caloundra, Bott expects the gelding to be hard to run down in the Listed $200,000 Westlawn Finance Grafton Cup (2350m) and emulate former stablemate Zoumon who led throughout to win the race two years ago.

Bott and Gai Waterhouse have won the race twice, Supply And Demand in 2017 the other, while Waterhouse has taken home another three Grafton Cups dating back to 2006.

“It was important he ran both those races out strongly,’’ Bott said.

“It (Caloundra Cup) was a muddling run race, a bit stop-start, and wasn’t in the greatest position to take advantage of that. A bit dictated to. I thought his effort to pick up was good.

“He’s been up a while, we’re mindful of that, and there's a relatively quick turnaround for him off the back of that run but he seems well in himself.”

Meanwhile, Tom Charlton is upbeat about the chances of imported mare Quietness in the Grafton Cup at her third start for him and John O’Shea.

She put the writing on the wall first-up with a placing over a mile at Randwick then collected a Listed placing when runner-up in the Tatt’s Gold Crown (2100m) at Eagle Farm three weeks ago.

Charlton said there’s a lot of potential in the mare and how she performs in the Grafton Cup will go a long way to confirming where she’ll be best placed distance wise – she has won twice at 2400m in the UK - going forward.

“She’s just been a delight, you just couldn’t fault her in any way,’’ he said.

“She’s a good, tough, natured filly. She’s easy going and happy to do her work.

“She could have relaxed a little bit more in the first half of the race last start.

Bear On The Loose runs second at Sunshine Coast on July 8

“I don’t think it’s going to be an ongoing issue but where we rode her she perhaps could have dropped the bridle just a touch.

“When she did present she seemed to wander around a bit. Perhaps it’s a bit of immaturity and adapting to conditions.”

In-form jockey Andrew Adkins partners Quietness at Grafton.

All the fields, form and replays for Thursday's Grafton Cup meeting