Australian sprinter Asfoora set for Betfred Temple Stakes at Haydock

“We’re not here for a haircut – we’re here to win some races.”

Australian trainer Henry Dwyer has evidently left no part of Asfoora’s 2024 European tour unexplored as he counts down the days to her UK debut in the Betfred Temple Stakes at Haydock on Saturday.

From the initial 44-hour door-to-door journey, linking up with Amy Murphy and partner Lemos De Souza in Newmarket several weeks ago in order to help his mare settle into her new surroundings, to utilising the skills of renowned stalls expert Craig Witheford, it’s clear this trip couldn’t be further from the back-packing sojourn Dwyer enjoyed in this part of the world during his late-teens.

“We were worried that coming from another hemisphere that she’d start growing her winter coat before we got here for the warmer weather, but we managed to mitigate against that by having her under lights at home before she came over and extending the daylight she was having there to match what’s here," Dwyer said on a Jockey Club-hosted Zoom call.

"We put an Equilume mask on her when she got here, so there’s various things you can do. There are always concerns around everything when travelling – different tracks, different feed, different weather, different work environments. But we’ve tried to mitigate against all that by having our own staff as much as we can and having Mitch (jockey, Mitchell Aitken) here in the week building up too.

“Having him here is an important part of the puzzle, he rides a lot for me in Australia and he probably knows Asfoora better than anyone. Him being here for 10 days in the lead-up to her first run has been very beneficial and he suggested after he galloped her on Friday that that was as good as she can possibly work.

“I think we’ve done as much as we can and now it’s up to the horse.”

The Group 2 Temple may be used as something of a sighter prior to a shot at next month’s Group 1 King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot, with York, Goodwood, the Curragh and Longchamp all under consideration later in the year, but this weekend’s £125,000 highlight is also seen as a key chance to start recovering some of the costs of what the Victoria-based handler openly describes as an “expensive” idea.

Dwyer said: “The Betfred Temple Stakes would be a terrific race to win, it’s not our Grand Final obviously but by the same token, we need to stamp ourselves a little bit here and say we’re going to be highly competitive because it has been and is going to be an expensive trip. We need to show that she’s good enough and we’d love to win.

“I had a good chat to Sam Haggas before we came over and he suggested the sprinting ranks were a little bit thin and watched all the races from those major races from last year. With the sad demise of Highfield Princess, and Shaquille being retired, it just did leave the door a jar for a sprinter to come across. And we know from previous years, the Australian horses that come across are always live in the market with good chances.

“We’ve run second to Imperatriz, who is the best sprinter in Australia, and we half came over here to get away from her, and she’s since been retired, so we might have pulled the wrong rein there, but we’re more than happy to be here.

“I watched the Palace House Stakes a few weeks ago and the Duke of York just the other day and they seem an even lot. I’ve got full respect for the Nunthorpe winner from last year [Live In The Dream] and the Haydock Sprint Cup winner [Regional] but I think she can measure up, for sure.

Australian speedsters have generally flown the flag with distinction in Britain since Choisir’s remarkable Golden Jubilee-King’s Stand double 21 years ago, with the likes of Takeover Target, Miss Andretti, Scenic Blast, Merchant Navy, Nature Strip and the magnificent Black Caviar all etching their names into sprinting folklore.

But while Dwyer admits the exploits of those former champions did fan the flames of his desire to one day have a runner at the Royal meeting, he knows that Asfoora probably isn’t quite cut from the same cloth.

“It’s had a big influence, particularly Choisir doing the Tuesday-Saturday double,” he said.

“With Black Caviar I was at Federation Square in Melbourne at the big screen, there were famous scenes of 20,000 or 30,000 people cheering her on in the middle of the night and I was one of them.

"When we decided we were going to come over here there was a bit of surprise in Australia that this mare, who is probably the eighth, ninth or 10th best sprinter over there, was going to chance her arm. But in reality she’s probably in the top three five-furlong sprinters in Australia. All our good races are six furlongs and the calendar at home didn’t suit us, so these races are much more suitable for her. She can stick to five and five and a half furlongs.

“It seems a very even year for sprinters over here and I think she can measure up, for sure.”

The long-haul flight, as one might expect, initially took plenty out of Asfoora, who has slowly but surely adjusted to life in British racing’s headquarters and is now showing all the right signs that she’s as happy as ever in her home from home.

The trainer said: “She’s been here three and a half weeks. We did have to put the trip on ice for a week due to air space issues and the Middle East conflict, but it just meant we did a little bit more with her at home. We’ve given her plenty of breathing space since she’s been here, we haven’t really tightened the screws yet and have just let her be.

“To be honest, I hadn’t seen her for three weeks until I arrived the other day and I couldn’t be any happier with how she looks, how her work’s been going and how she’s settled in. If anything, she’s more settled in this sort of environment than she is normally and the trip has done her the world of good.

“You can only really stay in a barn that is by itself and not many stables have little stand-alone areas, but Amy’s partner Lemos has a pre-training barn next door so we can stay there and from our perspective it’s just a lot more suitable than the busy Newmarket stables up on the Bury Road or in the town, because she’s not a filly you want to be stopping and waiting for traffic – or waiting at the bottom of Warren Hill with. She really needs to walk out the back gate and go about her business.”

So the lights are all green for talented five-year-old Asfoora, who will have the assistance of Witheford at the start on Saturday in a bid to keep a lid on her, the Group 1 Oakleigh Plate assignment at Caulfield in February having gone wrong in the gate.

Dwyer explained: “She’s been OK over here but all through her career she’s been very difficult to deal with. I suppose horses can be a little bit spoilt and they get their own way a bit, nobody wants to discipline them and she does get pushy and pretty aggressive at times, but we just let her be to a great extent. She’s a very talented mare and come a long way since when she started.

“She’s still very impatient in the barriers and just wants to get the job done so we have Craig Witheford here to work with her, he’ll have a hold of her in the gates on Saturday.

“She’s a gutsy filly – she has a red-hot go as we’d say in Australia – and because of that she’s very consistent. The only times she’s run a poor race is when we’ve put a silly task in front of her. She been unlucky a few times and you can’t do anything about that, but the races where distance-wise she’s been suited, she’s run well. And she puts herself there, she’s adaptable and has a crack.”

One element of Saturday’s race completely out of Dwyer’s control is the state of the track at Haydock, Clerk of the Course Dan Cooper coming under fire for irrigating the course on Tuesday before a deluge of rain fell throughout Wednesday, with the chance of further showers to come.

But Dwyer has some sympathy for course officials and doesn’t mind the prospect of cut in the ground for his star mare.

He said: “Just like in Australia, track managers have a thankless task as they make a decision, then the weather changes, but we’re pretty adaptable. She’s won races on very firm tracks but her very best ground in my opinion is what we’d call a soft 5 or a soft 6 – so we have a grading system from 1 to 10, from fast to heavy, and she broke the track record at Sandown one day early in her career on a soft 6 which is pretty much unheard of as the track records are typically set on hard tracks.

“She really appreciates getting her toe in, so if the track was to be good to soft that would be perfect. I wouldn’t want it very soft but something in the middle would be perfect.

“She’s not one of those hard going sprinters, she can sit on a high-cruising speed – either take a sit or lead, it doesn’t really matter. She just manages to find a length at the end of a race off a high-cruising speed. That’s her biggest asset.”

Asfoora is the 100/30 favourite with Sky Bet for Saturday's contest which is due off at 1.50pm.

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

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