Joseph-Jones stable chasing place in Big Dance on Melbourne Cup day

The co-trainer will travel west on Sunday as One Aye looks to defend her Forbes Cup crown and book a place in the $3 million Big Dance.

The Barbara Joseph, Paul and Matt Jones stable has already qualified two horses for the November feature, Manderboss and Super Helpful claiming the Bega Cup and Snake Gully Cup.

Manderboss took his first step towards the Big Dance with a trial at Canberra on Friday, while the latter is a few weeks out from trialling.

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Jones said the stable has actively targeted spots in the lucrative race and is eager to see a third horse qualify with a big performance in Forbes.

"The Sydney horses are picking their mark," Jones said. "Forbes and Narrandera have only had one or two Sydney horses, whereas Coffs Harbour had three-quarters of the field Sydney-based.

"One Aye is going to Forbes coming off a very good Sydney run. She's fit as a fiddle and it was always the intent to back her up eight days later going 1800 metres back to a mile. We would've loved to have drawn soft, but she hasn't drawn well this prep so we'll see if we can get a third horse qualified for the Big Dance."

The stable arrived at Canberra Racecourse confident She's All In would deliver a victory on the venue's synthetic Acton track.

The mare completes all her trackwork on the surface and was stepping up to a 1750m distance that suited perfectly.

She's All In turned eight on Tuesday and is rapidly approaching retirement. Friday's win, however, ensured she will continue racing until at least the 1900m Stayers Cup on September 1.

"She's one of my best workers on the synthetic track," Jones said.

"That's one of the reasons we were so confident. She knows what to do. She's done all her gallops on it since she was a three-year-old, she knows it like the back of her hand.

"Today was the day she had to deliver. She had all the things in her favour, if she didn't run first or second or show she wanted to be here, we probably would've retired her to stud. Now she's shown us that performance at the right distance, she wants to be here."

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