Training Report of Foreign Entry
The 3rd Leg of Global Sprint Challenge
The 45th Running of the Takamatsunomiya Kinen (G1)

March 26, 2015 (Thursday)

<At Chukyo Racecourse>

Weather: Fine
Going: Firm (turf course)

Aerovelocity (NZ, G7, Bay)

- jogged 600m, cantered 400m, galloped 800m (turf course)
(exercised from 6:48 to 7:00, ridden by Yaw Chong Chew)

“He did an easy piece of fast work this morning which is the standard work in Hong Kong. Taking into consideration the amount of travel that he’s had, that’s just about what we’d imagined and he was basically already fit prior to coming here, that’s just about what we wanted to do. The rider said that he handled the left-handed way of going pretty well, he got on the right leg on the straight—prior to coming to Hong Kong, he was trained left-handed and had won a race left-handed, so he seemed to handle the turn very well, which is important.

I was very pleased to see him when we took his cover off—he looks fantastic and that was justified when we weighed him, he was almost bang on his best body weight, 540kg, which is just about his weight when he won the Hong Kong Sprint. He’s coped with the isolation and being on his own which is always a big issue and he’s fed extremely well. So we’re very happy with the way things are gone.

Taking overseas has always been the plan from the very start of this season. He’s only had four races in the season, so we’ve raced him quite sparingly with the idea of taking him overseas somewhere. Dubai was the other option but since the surface was changed from all-weather tracks to dirt this year, we decided to run him in the Takamatsunomiya Kinen.

He’s raced left-handed before (in New Zealand) and been successful but at G1 level it’s a little bit of an unknown. As far as the rise on the track (at Chukyo) goes, again, unknown because he’s sort of raced on the flat track his whole time—so those are the two things, going into the race, we’re not too sure about. He’s big and strong, he’s got very good gait speed, he’s got a good jump from the gate and lead, but he’s pretty versatile in his races—he’s also won coming from last this season—so if the pace is sedate, which is usually not the case here, he can make the pace, but he can also follow if some horses want to go in front. Basically I think he’s a very courageous horse and we hope he can run to his very best, and if so he’ll be very competitive.”

(comments taken from Paul O'Sullivan)