'To win on Sunday would be the icing on the cake,' says trainer What reaction trainer Joe Janiak is going to get from Takeover Target when he finally sends him for a spell after the HK$12 million Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint is anyone's guess, but one look at the gelding shows it won't improve him. Despite having spent the past nine months in and out of planes and foreign stabling and racking up Asia Miles points, the world's best turf sprinter strolled by yesterday morning glowing like someone's ideal of a healthy horse. 'He looks even better than when he was in England where his coat was all wrong because of the change of seasons. It was summer and he was growing a winter coat there, like he would in Australia,' Janiak said. 'Didn't look that good, but he raced the same.' The Takeover Target story never fades in the retelling, never ceases to remind us in a Seabiscuit kind of way that even the grip on racing of the mega rich and mighty can be loosened in an occasional crazy fairytale. A taxi driver and hobby-horse trainer living in a caravan at a country racecourse, Janiak stepped in just ahead of the knackery to buy Takeover Target as an unraced cast-off for A$1,250 (HK$7,500), plus A$125 goods and services tax. When he then had a vet go over the gelding, the report was an encyclopedia of equine problems - Takeover Target had already had virtually every operation possible but Janiak pressed on, thinking he might squeeze one or two runs out of the horse despite his bad knees. Janiak worked miracles to win with Takeover Target first time out and he just kept on winning. By his seventh start, he was a Group One winner and it hasn't stopped yet as he roves the planet looking for new goals and taking Janiak out of the cab, out of the caravan and into an ongoing dream. Wins in Melbourne, at Royal Ascot and in Japan have left no rival for the 2006 Global Sprint Challenge crown, but there is still the US$1 million bonus for winning at Sha Tin on Sunday. 'He doesn't seem to mind travelling. Wherever we go he just goes in, settles down and makes himself at home,' Janiak says. 'It's been a big year, more than I could ever have dreamed of, but to win this one on Sunday would be the icing on the cake. I can't fault him. His work's been good, his attitude the same as ever. After this, we'll take him home and give him a spell. He's certainly earned it.' Along the way, Janiak picked up young Sydney jockey Jay Ford to partner Takeover Target in places and races that would have many a more experienced hand excited. And Ford's happy to keep believing. 'He's worked nice and strong, pulled up well,' he said after the gelding galloped in dashing style. 'He's first-up for two months but he's won first-up before, he feels every bit as well as he was in Japan. Hopefully, he can draw an alley and the fairytale continues,' Ford said. Janiak's plans haven't extended beyond Sunday and a spell just yet, but there's a little idea floating eerily around in his head. 'The big sprints in Melbourne will come too soon, but I'd like to get him ready for the T.J. Smith Stakes in Sydney in April - and if he's going any good at the time we might just pack up and head to England and do the whole thing over again.'
