Another victory for South Africa?
Eagle Mountain and Soft Falling Rain provided the country's top trainer Mike de Kock with success in this in 2008 and 2013, and Whisky Baron is out to embellish that record.
Off since winning the Grade 1 Sun Met (formerly known as the J&B Met) at Kenilworth in Cape Town in January, he spent three months in quarantine in Mauritius and has been based at the South African-owned Abington Place Stables on Newmarket's Bury Road.
"We've got plans to take him to Hong Kong in December, so that's our bigger plan and since we gelded him he's won five in a row, including a Grade 1 on his last start," said Zimbabwean-born trainer Brett Crawford, who is based in Cape Town.
"I think he's a horse we haven't got to the bottom of and I'm very excited about him. It's not been easy coming off three months quarantine in Mauritius and this is part of his preparation for Hong Kong, but going into a Group 2 in England you can't go in needing a run or being unfit, so we've done a lot of work with him and he's in a very good place at the moment.
"He's a big horse - he weighs 560kg - and is a horse who would not like soft ground, so we're hoping the weather gods are on our side.
"We took him to Newmarket last Monday and he did struggle a bit with the undulations, which we did expect and that's the reason we took him to the track, but he's a fast learner and each time he's been back to the Heath he's got better and his work's improved. I think it was a good call to take him to the track and hopefully he'll handle it."
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