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Tasmania’s newest staying star Eastender is on his way to Australia’s biggest races after his historic win in the $250,000 TAB Launceston Cup at Mowbray.

Trained at Devonport by Barry Campbell, Eastender has swept through Tasmania’s summer carnival with a sequence of feature wins that will now take him to South Australia for the $400,000 Adelaide Cup (3200m) at Morphettville on March 11.

By becoming the first horse in 42 years to win Tasmania’s Devonport Cup, Hobart Cup and Launceston Cup treble in the same season Eastender has overcome early distance qualifications for this year’s Melbourne Cup – and Campbell believes it is not beyond his late maturing 5YO to go all the way to Flemington in November.

“All he has needed is time and distance,” said 64-year-old Campbell, a Tasmanian Racing Hall of Fame inductee.

“It’s always been one race at a time with him but we know he can stay and the Adelaide Cup looks a perfect race for him in his current form.

“The horse never ceases to amaze me because the sectional times he runs to win his races are outstanding.

“I doubt 3200 metres will present any problems for him, so we are entitled to dream about the Melbourne Cup.”

Tasmanian legend Brallos won the Devonport, Hobart and Tasmanian Cups treble twice in 1976 and 1977 and also contested a Melbourne Cup in his heyday.

Eastender has won 10 of his 21 starts for prizemoney of more than $500,000, becoming a tremendous bargain for his syndicate of 13 Tasmanian owners brought together by Star Thoroughbreds syndicator Denise Martin after she purchased the gelding for $22,000 at the Magic Millions Yearling Sale in Launceston in 2015.

Eastender also picked up the $100,000 Tasracing Cups Double Bonus, split evenly between Campbell and his ownership syndicate, that was offered to the horse winning the Hobart and Launceston Cups in the same season

Eastender is the fifth horse in the last 30 years to complete the Hobart Cup/Launceston Cup double, joining Up Cups (2016), Epingle (2014), Zacielo (2004) and St Andrews (2002).

Campbell said his stable had now won every feature race in Tasmania.

“This was the only one missing from the list – we have won everything else over the last 40 years but had only had a couple of second placings in the Launceston Cup,” Campbell said

Campbell is Denise Martin’s brother-in-law and together they have won a swag of Tasmania’s best races with horses like the noted Group winner Admiral.

Campbell also trains Deroche, winner of last Sunday’s Magic Millions 2YO Classic, for Star Thoroughbreds and they also won an earlier race on the Launceston Cup program with Cranbrook.

Eastender gave champion Tasmanian jockey Craig Newitt his second Launceston Cup success, 15 years after his first on Zacielo in 2004

Newitt has been Eastender’s constant rider for almost 18 month and has now won seven races on the Tickets gelding.

Just as he did in the Hobart Cup, Newitt bided his time in the second half of the field and never left the fence to rail up behind the leader Fabrizio approaching the home turn.

Fabrizio, from the Sydney stable of Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, had dictated the pace and was still travelling strongly on the home turn where the favourite Etymology was under pressure after being given every chance by his rider Brendon McCoull.

Newitt came to the outside of Fabrizio on straightening and it was apparent he was the only danger to the gallant leader, gaining the upper hand over the last 150 metres to win by a half length.

Lamborghini, second to Eastender in the Hobart Cup, ran home gamely from last to finish third with the outsider Settler’s Stone running a huge race to finish fourth after looming as a winning chance at the 300m.

The winning sequence of the Godolphin stayer Etymology after a treble of victories in Sydney and Melbourne came to an end when he faded to finish eighth.