Turkish Palace eyes Contrail upset in G1 Kikuka Sho

Improving Golden Horn colt Turkish Palace attempts to foil a Triple Crown bid when he takes on unbeaten superstar Contrail in the G1 Kikuka Sho, the Japanese St Leger, at Kyoto on Sunday.

Turkish Palace (Akatsuki Tomita) has already faced Contrail in one of the main trials for the 15-furlong Classic, the G2 Kobe Shimbun Hai over a mile and three furlongs at Chukyo at the end of September.

Making his Graded-race debut, the Mistugu Kon-trained colt kept on to come home fifth behind the Tokyo Yushun and Satsuki Sho victor.

Turkish Palace stayed on well in testing conditions when scoring by half a length in the 10-furlong Shinanogawa Tokubetsu at Niigata in August and the homebred has posted two further victories, including a nose verdict in a Hanshin allowance race in July.

Harry Sweeney, President of Godolphin in Japan, said: “Turkish Palace’s first career win was on heavy ground and because of this predilection we deliberately campaigned him this summer during the rainy season, when he duly obliged by winning twice again.

“However, we may have wrongly pigeon-holed him as a wet ground horse as he really surprised us by running on really well to take fifth last time out in the G2 Kobe Shimbun Hai on firm ground. Nevertheless, we are pleased that it is currently raining in Kyoto with the forecast predicting 1.5cm of rain on Friday. Ideally, we would like it to continue to race day but irrespective we are now more sanguine about the going.

“A feature of Turkish Palace’s wins to date has been that he has kept his best work to late in the race. He has won over eight, nine and 10 furlongs but we have absolutely no worries about his stamina and 15 furlongs on a soft track would suit Turkish Palace a lot better than many of the other runners.

“Neither are we concerned about his draw in stall 16.”

Meanwhile, Trekking added another G1 second placing to his excellent record when runner-up to Hey Doc in Friday night’s Manikato Stakes at Moonee Valley.

The winner of G1 titles in the 2019 Stradbroke Handicap and this year’s Goodwood Handicap, Trekking was also finished second in last month’s G1 Moir Stakes at Moonee Valley. He had also finished fourth in the Everest at Randwick six days before his latest run.

Jockey John Allen had the six-year-old on the back of the winner turning into the short Valley straight and appeared set to make a race of it in the final 100m. But Hey Doc, already a Manikato Stakes winner, pulled out plenty and held off Trekking to win by three-quarters of a length. Dirty Work finished third, a head further back.

“He’s run super, he tried his heart out,” said Allen.

Trekking has proved himself a most worthy son of Darley’s champion sire Street Cry with 10 wins and 10 placings in a 32-start career that has yielded more then $5 million in prize money.

Godolphin’s Kementari finished fifth in the Manikato with Lyre sixth.