FITZSIMMONS' DUO SHIPSHAPE

Golden Monkey and Cyclone turn heads at gallops ahead of Saturday’s GI Raffles Cup

- Brian Miller

One would have thought, with trainer Ricardo Le Grange's pair of Raffles Cup contenders having ruled the training track on Monday, Tuesday morning would be robbed of much of the excitement.

Wrong. Out there on a sunny Tuesday and even without Katak and Hongkong Great - Kranji was abuzz.

And the vibes came from Tim Fitzsimmons' gallopers.

True to form, they lit up the track.

Golden Monkey, forever a sentimental favourite with the Kranji faithful, showed up in all his glory as did his stablemate Cyclone.

Sent out in separate gallops, both horses somehow returned identical times for the 600m, stopping the clock at 39.9sec.

As for their level of fitness heading into Saturday's Raffles Cup the first leg of the Singapore Triple Crown Series - Fitzsimmons would have said "no worries there" and he would have been spot-on.

Golden Monkey and Cyclone appear to be tuned up to the minute and focused for the big showing in the $300,000 Group 1 race to be run over the mile.

The Raffles Cup kicks off the Triple Crown series, which is also made up of the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup (1,800m) on Oct 14 and the Group 1 Singapore Gold Cup (2,000m) on Nov 11.