Lo­cal rac­ing is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to San­ta Rosa Park in Ari­ma on March 27th af­ter be­ing shut down eight days ago. How­ev­er, af­ter two days of talks, an am­i­ca­ble agree­ment was reached for the con­tin­u­ance of rac­ing by the Ari­ma Race Club (ARC), The Race­horse Train­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (RTA) and the Jock­eys As­so­ci­a­tion (JA) over out­stand­ing pay­ments.

Rac­ing is set to re­turn to cen­tralise venue and should at­tract the at­ten­tion of all horse­men, with the top three-year-olds com­ing out to do bat­tle in the Chief Com­man­der Clas­sic over 1600 me­tres on the Turf Track. This event may well re­veal the 'Triple Crown' as­pi­ra­tions of many.

This will be an in­ter­est­ing event and the Lester Alex­is trained three-year-old Ar­salan will at­tempt to con­tin­ue his win­ning ways af­ter win­ning the Roy­al Colours Clas­sic by a neck from favourite Su­per Bird with Pas­sion­ate back in third. That day, the race mon­ey came down for Ar­salan and he was gam­bled down by pun­ters from 15/1 to 7/2 sec­ond favourite.

Clear­ly, con­nec­tion be­lieved that he had im­proved and he came up pos­i­tive­ly un­der a con­fi­dent ride by Ri­co Her­nan­dez.

Ar­salan cre­at­ed quite a stir when he caged the top ju­ve­nile of the 2020 sea­son and the lead­ing three-year-old Su­per Bird in the fea­ture Roy­al Colours Clas­sic over 1,350 me­tres on the main track at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma on Feb­ru­ary 6.

The for­mer ap­pren­tice cham­pi­on Ri­co Her­nan­dez be­lieves that the:Lester Alex­is trained in-mate could de­vel­op in­to a top con­tender for the Triple Crown of 2021 and the Chief Com­man­der Clas­sic could be his first test.

Her­nan­dez was aboard, the Nigel Amin owned three-year-old Ar­salan, when he came storm­ing up the straight to nab the lead­ing three-year-old Su­per Bird in the Roy­al Colours Clas­sic and his sen­ti­ments should not be ig­nored af­ter Ar­salan stopped Su­per Bird in his hat­trick bid.

Her­nan­dez stat­ed, "In that event, we knew he was ready and ex­pect­ed a big run from him. We worked with a blink­er and he per­formed well with it and it has made him more fo­cussed on his work. That equip­ment change along with his di­et made the dif­fer­ence."

Lester Alex­is and the team have been very pa­tient with him and it has paid div­i­dends.

This race was the tar­get for both Lester Alex­is and own­er Nigel Amin, the pair have point­ed Ar­salan for this event, the Chief Com­man­der Stakes on the turf. How­ev­er, they both be­lieved, that there will be no prob­lem with him of the grass. Be­ing a broth­er to Dark Trea­sure who was very ver­sa­tile, win­ning on both the grass and main track, Ar­salan should have no prob­lem trans­fer­ring his form from the main track to the turf.

The John O'Brien sta­ble will no doubt be very well rep­re­sent­ed in this event and Su­per Bird will lead the charge. This horse was very im­pres­sive when record­ing a faster time than Ar­salan when he won St James/St. Ann's Stakes on De­cem­ber 22 by 6 1/2 lengths from sta­ble­mates Games Chang­er and With Hon­ors, with Pas­sion­ate back in the fourth po­si­tion.

Su­per Bird reg­is­tered the time of 1:22.3 for the trip.

In the Roy­al Colours Clas­sic when rid­den by Bri­an Boodram­s­ing, Su­per Bird looked the like­ly win­ner un­til Ar­salan flew up the straight and mas­tered him close to home. He has been work­ing well and will no doubt be com­ing to avenge his de­feat at the hooves of Ar­salan. He could prove dif­fi­cult to catch if he trans­fers his main track form to the turf.

O'Brien Pas­sion­ate has been im­pres­sive in vic­to­ry this sea­son and would have had her prep-race for this event when rac­ing was shut down. She is im­prov­ing and could prove to be a very good three-year-old.

Game Chang­er who fin­ished sec­ond to Su­per Bird in the St James / St Ann's Stakes suf­fered the same fate as Pas­sion­ate, a thor­ough­bred was un­able to race on Day5 of the ARC rac­ing sea­son.

Game Chang­er con­tin­ues to im­prove and O'Brien will be seek­ing to up­stage Ar­salan and land an­oth­er of his one-two-three fin­ish­es.

The $25,000 purse event will in­deed give tur­fites and pun­ters a clear­er pic­ture of the three-year-old Clas­sic gen­er­a­tion.