Champion jockey Damien Oliver will be reunited with West Australian star Marasco at Moonee Valley on Saturday in the $350,000 Manikato Stakes.
Oliver holds an unbeaten record on Marasco, who is returning to Melbourne after trainer Fred Kersley decided there were no suitable races for the six-year-old in Perth in the early spring.
Kersley said he had found it almost impossible to place Marasco in Perth due to his high handicap rating of 116. He was scratched from a Perth race last Saturday because of a crushing 66kg handicap.
"It has been very difficult to place him here in the west with his high rating and the Manikato fits the program for me really well," Kersley told Perth Racing.
Marasco 
has won three of his last four starts in Perth since March, having his races well spaced and last appearing on June 14 when he carried 60kg to win the Belmont Sprint over 1400m.
Oliver has not ridden Marasco since December of 2006 when he won the Winterbottom Stakes and A J Scahill Stakes on the gelding at the Ascot summer carnival.
Marasco, who has won 12 of his 25 starts, will be having his ninth Melbourne start on Saturday in a bid to break through for his first Group One success.
He has won only one of his previous eight starts in Melbourne, in the Group 2 Makybe Diva (Craiglee) Stakes at Flemington, but has been placed five times including three G1 races (Orr Stakes, Australian Cup and Underwood Stakes).
He has had only one previous start at Moonee Valley, finishing 12th of 13 in last year's W.S. Cox Plate.
Oliver's booking for Marasco holds some irony for the jockey as it comes after he lost the ride on another Perth star Scenic Blast in Saturday's Dato Tan Nim Chan Stakes at Moonee Valley.
諗住學阿帕奇貓落去短途屈短途馬 :llll:
