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Quechua’s ambitious Dubai trail will depend to a great extent on how he runs this Friday before booking a ticket for the desert raid.
The Gold Cup-Derby winner takes pride of place with the topweight of 59kgs in the $125,000 Open Handicap race over 2000m. Even if the Argentinian-bred gives plenty of lead-bags all round to his six rivals, including three stablemates Perfect P, Time Odyssey and Song To The Moon, trainer Ricardo Le Grange is expecting nothing less than a forward run to give his eventual participation in either US$6 million Group 1 Longines Dubai Sheema Classic (2410m) or the US$1 million Group 2 Dubai Gold Cup (3200m) a significant boost.
On paper, a win from Quechua would not be hard to fathom given he is stepping up to a much more suitable trip than at his first-up run over 1400m on February 10 when seventh to Debt Collector.
But as is often the case when a trainer fields big teams of runners with more or less equal chances in the same race, any below-par run from the better-fancied stablemate could actually come as a result of defeat inflicted by its own brethren.
“All four horses have trialled very well, and I couldn’t be happier with their conditions going into Friday’s race,” said Le Grange.
“Yet again, I have the most runners in such races, but that goes to show we do not have many opportunities for such horses, and when one comes up, they all end up in the same race.
“Obviously, Quechua is giving a lot of weight all around, seven to eight kilos to very good horses, including his own stablemates, which makes it a hard task for him.
“But it’s always been part of his programme to have this run going towards Dubai. I hope to see him run a decent race and we can then seriously look at Dubai.
“He’s entered in both the 2400m and 3200m race, but I tend to prefer the Gold Cup (3200m) race as I’ve always believed he will stay two miles.
“And I would say the Gold Cup is generally less strong than the Sheema Classic.”
Le Grange has always held Quechua in high regard during the time the Avengers Stable-owned gelding brought up a sensational record of eight wins for his former boss Patrick Shaw, with the Group 1 Longines Singapore Gold Cup (2200m) in 2014 and the Group 1 Emirates Singapore Derby (2000m) as his biggest claims to fame.
Quechua capped his campaign under the Shaw era overseas when he ran in the Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Vase (2400m) last December. Le Grange was the travelling foreman and was full of admiration of the run even if they took eighth place to Japan’s Satono Crown, more than 10 lengths adrift.
To the first-year South African trainer, Quechua should have finished closer if he had not been caught wide and taken a few checks that pushed him further back than he would have liked.
While Le Grange will be sweating on a run that will open up Dubai doors on Friday night, that doesn’t mean he will lose sight of the remaining trio – far from it.
“Perfect P has not won for more than a year (since the 2015 New Year Cup). His run in this year’s New Year Cup (fourth) was a little flat but it could have been the second-up syndrome after rest,” said Le Grange.
“He didn’t have an easy run in the Fortune Bowl. He was eased several times and returned lame, but he’s back to full race-fitness, and I expect to see him run an improved race.
“Time Odyssey ran super in the Fortune Bowl (second with Glen Boss up) and showed he was not just a Polytrack horse. Glen rides him again and I expect another bold run.
“As for Song To The Moon, he won at his last two races but is the testing material this time. We’ve had big goals for him as a four-year-old this year like the Derby, and at some stage, he had to tackle the better grade of horses to tell us where he is at.
“He’s in great shape and with no weight on his back, I hope to see him run a good race, too.”
The Jubilant Racing Stable-owned son of Savabeel will be ridden by Nooresh Juglall while Le Grange has booked Barend Vorster on Quechua and Olivier Placais on Perfect P.
