Joseph O'Brien could launch a two-pronged attack on Saturday's Caulfield Cup with Okita Soushi (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Valiant King (GB) (Roaring Lion) described to be in rude health ahead of the Group 1 contest.
With two G1 Melbourne Cup triumphs on his CV already courtesy of Rekindling (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}) and Twilight Payment (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) to add to a G1 Cox Plate triumph with State Of Rest (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}), O'Brien knows what it takes to win the big-race riches in Australia.
The team at Owning Hill will be hoping to add a Caulfield Cup success to that roll of Australian honours, with Okita Soushi and Valiant King intended runners on Saturday.
Travelling head lad Sean Corby told Racing.com, “They are very good. They've been training well and seem happy and everything's gone good so far, so we're hopeful now that they'll both get in.
“They did a strong piece of work on Saturday and other than that it's mostly been nice canters every day.
“They both ran at Ascot in big fields and both ran well, so that should be fine and hopefully they should handle the track and like a bit of good ground as well.”
He added, “I think Okita Soushi, by the sounds of it, will probably go on to run in the Melbourne Cup if he gets in and I think at the moment Valiant King might just run in the Caulfield Cup and that might be it for this year.
“They've both got light weights, so hopefully the two of them could run well and it's hard to split them on what they've been doing here.”
Simon and Ed Crisford's West Wind Blows (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) is among the fancied runners for Saturday's mile-and-a-half race at Caulfield, having recently finished second in the G1 Turnbull S. at Flemington.
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