Racehorse TALK

Brendan Cormick | April 28, 2009
Article from:  The Australian

SOUTH Australia is in the grip of Takeover Target fever as he prepares for his first public appearance in Adelaide at Morphettville this morning.

The South Australian Jockey Club expects hundreds to attend Breakfast With The Stars to watch Takeover Target gallop at 7.30am (CST). But more than 10,000 people could turn out to see him race for Group I honours on the weekend.

The $1375 purchase can take his stake earnings through the $6million barrier by winning The Goodwood (1200m) on Saturday. And officials anticipate the crowd will rival the number that attended the final meeting at Cheltenham Park in February and more than double past attendance figures for the Goodwood meeting.

"The awareness is there and, weather permitting, we are expecting a big crowd to come out and see Takeover Target on Super Saturday," an SAJC spokesman said.

Saturday night's AFL showdown between Port Adelaide and the Adelaide Crows may draw some people away from the afternoon feast of racing, which also features the South Australian Derby and Sires' Produce Stakes. But Takeover Target's appearance is a one-time only engagement. Already it has drawn parallels with Tulloch's visit to South Australia in 1961. The Hall Of Fame galloper drew more than 30,000 people to Cheltenham Park for the Pullman Stakes and, a little over 30 years earlier, Phar Lap won the Elder Stakes and King's Cup at Morphettville.

Racetrack idols Octagonal and Vo Rogue were brought to South Australia and paraded at race meetings but they did not compete. Takeover Target will start an odds-on favourite in the $300,000 race that will be his launching pad to his final international campaign, starting in Singapore in May and winding up in England in June.