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Right Approach baffled by clockwise course

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Mike de Kock-trained Right Approach posed as many questions as he answered when he galloped at Sha Tin yesterday morning ahead of the Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Sha Tin on Sunday.

A last-start dead-heater with QE II Cup rival Paolini in the Dubai Duty Free (1,777 metres) on World Cup night, Right Approach looked very new to the right-handed way of going as he pulled and reefed his way around the all-weather track under race jockey Weichong Marwing.

A casual observer might have concluded that the clockwise direction was going to be an issue for Right Approach on Sunday and Jehan Malherbe, the South Africa-based agent who put together the ownership syndicate, was unable to shed much light on that.

'He may have raced that way in England but as long as Mike's had him he's been in Dubai, where of course it's left handed, so I couldn't be sure,' he said.

'He has been a horse with a multitude of problems and if he wasn't, we probably wouldn't have been able to get him.

'His last couple of runs for Michael Stoute were terrible in England before [De Kock] took him over in Dubai. He's just generally unsound. The horse requires constant attention and nursing and it really has been a fantastic training feat by Mike to get him back into this sort of form.'

Although Right Approach will race representing South Africa, he has never been inside the country, proceeding straight to Dubai after his purchase in the United Kingdom, and he may be destined for a nomadic existence if he continues his racing career.

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