Le Grange's 'quintet' in good order for Trophy
The Avengers Stable has a nice set of racing colours. Black and yellow with a distinctive "horseshoe" on the front and back.
Come Sunday, QUECHUA's jockey will don those silks.
And it will be those colours which the racegoers will be looking for when the field in the Chairman's Trophy gets serious at the business end of the 1,800m race.
However, to Quechua's rivals, those silks will have nothing more than the circular rings of a target emblazoned on them.
"MARKED HORSE"
Yes, Quechua is now and forever a "marked horse" and a target for all who come up against him.
That, after his slashing win in the Queen Elizabeth II Cup in June.
But this is the thing, Quechua seems up to the task and, yesterday, he and the rest of trainer Ricardo Le Grange's Trophy marauders were put through their paces in preparation for the big day.
As one would expect, Quechua looked as good as he could be.
Ridden by Vlad Duric, the seven-year-old had stablemate STORM TROOPS (Nooresh Juglall) for company in a 600m hit-out which they covered in a sizzling 35.7sec.
As we all know, Storm Troops is another up and coming star form Le Grange's yard and he lost no fans when running third behind Quechua in the QE II.
With eight wins from 16 starts and a bank balance that's hitting the $600,000 mark, Storm Troops - though six years old - is far from the finished product and will be right there in the firing line when the big guns start taking aim at the prize on Sunday.
Talking of big guns, trainer Le Grange - who has five of the 11 Chairman's Trophy runners - should have a big say in the race.
And, aside from Quechua and Storm Troops, his three other runners are not there just to make up the numbers.
PERFECT P and SONG TO THE MOON were also strutting their stuff on the training track, covering the 600m in 35.1sec. Barend Vorster was on Perfect P while Oscar Chavez had the seat on Song To The Moon.
Perfect P has not won in over a year but he collected a sizeable share of the purse when losing - in a blanket finish - to Blue Swede in a $125,000 race on Emirates Derby day.
The last of Le Grange's quintet for the Chairman's Trophy, TIME ODYSSEY, was also put through his paces by Vorster and he ran a sizzler - clocking 34.8sec after breaking from a canter into a full gallop. He had SITUATION (T Krishna) for company.
A three-year-old who races in the colours of Falcon Racing Stable, Situation has been pencilled in to start on Sunday in the Class 4 Division 1 race over the mile.
But back to Time Odyssey, he is one of a clutchful or horses on three-figure ratings and is as honest as they come.
It was in April that he last won a race and, after two woeful runs, the six-year-old South African-bred can only do better.
A winner of eight races, Time Odyssey is been by many to be "Polytrack horse". But that could be a costly assumption as Time Odyssey has won twice on the grass, the most recent being in March when he beat his stablemate Mr Fantastic over the mile on turf.
Come Sunday, count on him being in the leading pack at the business end of things.
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