As Sunday's Yasuda Kinen showed us yet again, it is no easy task to take a horse away to win a Group One on foreign soil so it is always interesting to see what ideas smart people are employing to overcome the many disadvantages for the travelling horse.
Australian trainer Peter Moody is always on the leading edge and he was at it again when Black Caviar paraded on Monday, just one gallop away from boarding a flight to take her to Royal Ascot.
The mare may be long odds-on to win the Diamond Jubilee Stakes on June 23, but Moody is taking nothing for granted and presented Black Caviar in a lycra compression suit designed to help her to cope with the long flights.
The trainer told the media John McNair, who trains Black Caviar's only worthy rival at home, Hay List, had given him the idea and he enlisted the help of another Australian world champion, sprint hurdler Sally Pearson, to get the suit made.
Human athletes wear the compression suits for a variety of reasons, all still under discussion as legitimate or not, with the basic principle that the suits gently squeeze the limbs and facilitate good blood flow. The makers of these suits claim they improve injury prevention, recovery after exercise, bring decreased muscle fatigue and give better body temperature control.
For Moody, it was preventing soft tissue injuries that appealed as Black Caviar is prone to them, according to her trainer. Whether she has trained or will train in the suit wasn't explored at the conference, apparently, but its one more idea being employed to attempt to transfer a horse's form from one place to another without interruption, which is so much the troublesome area of international racing.
Neither Glorious Days nor Lucky Nine fired a shot in Japan and we have seen much the same from many of the overseas runners from Hong Kong all season. It's not easy.