Plan comes together for Equator

ABILITY: PETER'S CHARGE WELL WEIGHTED, LOVES THE COURSE AND CAN WIN SUMMER CUP

- Jack Milner

Inane, insane or inspired? That is possibly the best way to describe this writer's decision to make The Equator a banker in all bets at Turffontein tomorrow.

Sired in Ireland, this five-year-old entire is impeccably bred and trainer Tony Peter has prepared him perfectly to win the R6-million Betway Summer Cup over 2000m at Turffontein tomorrow.

Many pundits have pointed to the fact that this son of Galileo has only had three races since arriving in South Africa. He failed on his debut appearance at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Durban July day but since then has gone on to win both his races on the Turffontein Standside track.

The first was a Pinnacle Stakes over 1800m in August and the second came in a Graduation Plate over 1600m last month.

Warren Kennedy rode the horse at Greyville and after that run, despite the disappointment, the former champion jockey was positive about The Equator. He said the horse was hanging badly throughout the race which made him difficult to ride and added that as a long-striding individual he was unsuited to Greyville.

His advice – fit him in blinkers and run him at Turffontein. From that point on a strategy was developed for The Equator with the Betway Summer Cup as his mission. More important was to get him into the race with as low a weight as possible.

As time went on and Peter got to know more about his charge, he realised he had an extremely talented individual in the yard.

Champion jockey Gavin Lerena then became involved and as time went on this entire got better and better.