Ballydoyle Sweet On Cox Plate Repeat

Team Ballydoyle are hopeful of a repeat victory in Saturday’s G1 William Hill Cox Plate at Moonee Valley. Successful last year with Adelaide (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) Aidan O’Brien this year relies on another son of Galileo in Highland Reel (Ire). This 3-year-old colt has a similar profile to Adelaide having also won the GI Secretariat S. at Arlington in August. He has reportedly taken the trip to Australia in his stride and will have the added assistance of Ryan Moore in the saddle, high on confidence after two Grade I wins in Canada on Sunday. T.J Comerford, one of Aidan O’Brien’s assistants is overseeing the Coolmore owned colt’s preparation in Australia and he reported, “Highland Reel is in good form and has settled in well. He’s had pretty much the same preparation as he’s had for all his races and has most of his work done before he gets here. Aidan is very happy with him and his runs to date have been very good so he shouldn’t be too be far away.” A European horse will be strongly fancied to land the prestigious prize again as in addition to the O’Brien challenger the high class Arod (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}), beaten only half a length by Solow (Fr) (Singspiel {Ire}) in the G1 Sussex S. and MGSW Gailo Chop (Fr) (Deportivo) are also reported in good shape ahead of Saturday.