Trainer Shaffique Khan expects to lead in his first Gold Cup winner in T&T when he saddles the vastly improved filly Princess Suri in the NLCB Gold Cup on Boxing Day, Wednesday at Santa Rosa Park, Arima.
The shrewd conditioner was very optimistic about the chances of Princess Suri which has already won four of her eight starts this season. Three of her successes were in the Santa Rosa Dash, the President’s Cup, and the Diamond Stakes.
Khan is of the belief that she will take the prize for the champion stayer of the Southern Caribbean en-route to winning this year's Jetsam "Horse of the Year" title.
A confident Khan said, “I don’t think any horse in training can give my filly six kilos and beat her. She is a class act and handing out that kind of weight to my filly, negates a winning option. She has won her races well this season and before I tried her around two turns, I noticed the change in her running style where she began to relax and could be rated and produced whenever the rider wanted.
"She showed this in the President’s Cup and from that time to now, I thought we could have won both the Stewards Cup and the Gold Cup. However, we got a scare and she was out of training for two weeks and missed a couple of gallops. We thought she had an injury but after careful examination, we realised that she had an abscess on her right fore-leg. The scanning did the trick for us.
“I always say that her sire was a classy individual. Super Saver won the Kentucky Derby and her dam also won three graded events in the United States. So she has good pedigree on either side. She should have stayed in the United States and we would have won a lot of money with her. But, time is of the essence and after she wins the NLCB Gold Cup, we will go for the Independence Stakes in St Lucia for the opening of the new horse racing facility there,” said a confident Khan.
“At present, she is a very fit horse and though she was not working she was swimming. We got in a very good gallop on Tuesday morning when she worked over 1,100 metres in the bullet time of 59.2 seconds and on Friday morning, she breezed superbly over 600m in 35.2 seconds. That signalled that she is ready for all-comers in the Gold Cup and after Ronald Ali came off of her, he was smiling.
Khan thinks Princess Suri is the soundest horse in the event and cannot see any horse beating her.
"She has beaten the top class horses at worst-off weight differences and in receipt of weight from both Thisonesforron and Whisper Light, I think it is going to be very tough for any of her rivals to topple her," he said.
"Knowing the horses in the event and their soundness, I am confident that she will win the Gold Cup come Boxing Day and give the AGA Khan Stables there first Gold Cup winner.
“I want to say after she wins the Gold Cup, I expect her to be crowned Horse of The Year 2018."
Khan's confidence is infectious and the filly could be hard to beat on Boxing Day.
