Elusive Touch's winning touch

The Mark Kavanagh stable struck its first major blow of the season after Elusive Touch narrowly claimed the Group 3 Aurie’s Star Stakes at Flemington.

The 1200m handicap was Elusive Touch’s fourth start for Kavanagh after doing his early racing in Sydney, but the son of Elusive Quality has been extremely consistent, never finishing further back than second for the Flemington stable.

Elusive Touch jumped well enough to allow jockey Stephen Baster to have him travelling comfortably near the speed before the five-year-old dug deep to score his fourth win from nine starts.

"The horse came to me as a restricted galloper and he’s gone through his grades pretty quickly," Kavanagh said.

"He likes soft ground and he likes his races spaced. I don’t know how far into the spring he could go. We have just got to wait and see."

"In August, you can find a horse that has had two or three runs under his belt can beat the horses who are better performed."

"They are down in the weights and the tracks are slow. That is the reason he was in a race like this."

Elusive Touch held off the luckless Leica Larrikin, who was held up at a crucial stage, before driving up on the inside to narrow the margin to a half-head.

The Robbie Griffiths-trained Beltrois was 2 and 3/4 lengths away in a bunched finish for third ahead of the 10-year-old Royal Ida and the Group 1-winning mare Headway.