Dubai: Former Dubai World Cup runner Gitano Hernando will face a strong field of middle-distance specialists as he bids to win the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes (Group 1), Britain's prestigious late-season contest, to be held at Newmarket racecourse next weekend.
Trained by Marco Botti at his Newmarket-based Green Ridge Stables, the four-year-old announced his readiness for the challenge by taking the Group Three Diamond Stakes at Dundalk, Ireland, last month.
A winner of the Grade One Goodwood Stakes in the US last year, Gitano Hernando ran a close sixth to Gloria De Campeao in the Dubai World Cup (Group 1) at Meydan's all-weather track in March.
Botti issued a positive bulletin about his stable-star, who is credited with providing him with the one Group One success of his career.
"Gitano Hernando is pleasing us at home and he looks in good shape," said the trainer, who previously worked as an assistant to Godolphin supremo Saeed Bin Surour in Dubai.
Favourite surface
"He holds an entry in the Group 1 Champion Stakes at Newmarket and we hope to have him fit and ready for a return to the racetrack this month," he said on his website.
This will be Gitano Hernando's fifth career start on turf, a surface where he has notched up one of four career wins, which was in a Doncaster handicap last March.
Among his likely rivals are last year's Champion Stakes winner Twice Over, trained by Henry Cecil, Ed Dunlop's dual Oaks heroine Snow Fairy and French raider Vision D'Etat, who was an impressive winner of the Prince Of Wales's Stakes last year at Royal Ascot.
On his most recent start Vision D'Etat won the Group Three Prix Gontaut-Biron at Deauville in August. He is bidding to become only the third French-trained winner of the Champion Stakes in the past five years following Pride (2006) and Literato (2007).
Victoria Libaud, part-owner and wife of trainer Eric, said in Sportlinglife.com: "The plan is for Vision D'Etat to come over to Newmarket for the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes. He is well at the moment and has come on since his victory at Deauville in August.
"We had considered running him in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe but his distance is 10 furlongs and a mile and a half at Longchamp is a true test for a horse, especially on soft ground. His best form has always been at around 10 furlongs and the main objective was always to go to Newmarket with him."
Latest odds
Twice Over (7/2) , Vision dEtat (4), Snow Fairy (6) , Await The Dawn (8) , Cape Blanco (9) , Fuisse (11) , St Nicholas Abbey (11) , Wigmore Hall (11) , Gitano Hernando (16) , Glass Harmonium (16) , Tazeez (20) , Beethoven (25) , Campanologist (25) , Alwaary (33) , Antara (33) , Stimulation (40) , Cutlass Bay (50) - Others 0 or more
