There are two sides to Lord Of The Sky but Robbie Laing is convinced the best of the stakes-winning sprinter will be on show at Sandown.
Lord Of The Sky will resume as topweight and favourite in the Listed Christmas Cup on Saturday.
Lord Of The Sky
And Laing says Lord Of The Sky is in the same form as he was in winning the Monash Stakes in July rather than looking like the horse which got beaten in consecutive weeks at Caulfield and Moonee Valley.
Laing said Lord Of The Sky was in outstanding order for the 1000-metre scamper, his first run since August 2 when unplaced over 1000m at Moonee Valley as an odds-on favourite.
Loathe to use a virus as an excuse, Laing is under no illusion that is what brought Lord Of The Sky undone at Moonee Valley.
He said the horse wanted to lay down, firstly in his box, and then in the paddock, in the week after the race and had a blood result that wasn’t 100 per cent.
Laing said the four-year-old had recovered and Sandown racegoers will see an impressive-looking individual.
“He’s got a beautiful skin on him and I hope it’s not too hot on Saturday so that he breaks out in a sweat as you won’t get to see how good he looks,” Laing said.
Laing has broken with his routine of trialling Lord Of The Sky before he resumes, but two solid recent gallops have him in peak condition.
“He runs blistering times and two Mondays ago he wasn’t ready to do that,” Laing said.
“What I did was pit him against Boomwaa early last Saturday morning and gave them a hard hit-out to simulate a trial and they worked brilliantly together.
“He then went to Sandown and went two or three seconds quicker than I expected on Tuesday but pulled up really good after it.”
A trip to the beach on Wednesday has Laing confident Lord Of The Sky, to be ridden by Vlad Duric, will return a winner.
“The way he’s going, and he’s a terrific horse fresh, I’d be disappointed if he got beat,” he said.
