Lizard's Desire can grab the spoils from Collection & Co

A fascinating Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Sha Tin today sets up as a potential boilover and the Mike De Kock-trained Lizard's Desire has the form and the draw to provide a result for Dubai.

De Kock has upset better favoured rivals twice before, bringing Irridescence and Archipenko from successful desert campaigns to win the QE II, and Lizard's Desire (Christophe Soumillon) has a profile to suggest he can make that step, too.

On paper, the question mark on Lizard's Desire lies in his recent form being on Tapeta in Dubai, but a viewing of his turf efforts as a three-year-old in South Africa this time last year suggests that he was going to make the top grade on any surface.

Lizard's Desire showed brilliant acceleration going right-handed on the turf as he was climbing the ladder, and there was plenty of serious form around him, despite some of those races not carrying elite titles.

One of his contemporaries was a quality young horse called Big City Life, with whom he staged a memorable battle in one close finish that stamped both as future stars.

When Lizard's Desire had done his job for the time being and headed for a break, Big City Life went on to win South Africa's biggest race, the Durban July, and drew comparisons with one of the great three-year-olds of recent history there, Dynasty.