3 minute read

Trainer Nathan Doyle is bringing out the big guns to give Royal Banquet the best possible chance to return to the winner’s stall in Saturday’s $100,000 Midway Handicap (1300m) at Randwick.

The lightly raced gelding has been unplaced, in stronger company, in two runs since an injury-enforced spell and Doyle said now is the time for the blinkers to go on.

With a wet track likely, a class drop and a 3kg claim for Tyler Schiller he feels the "stars are aligning".

"I can't fault him, he's off a long break so he's probably taken those two runs to come to hand,'' Doyle said.

"He just blossomed in the coat since his last run which suggests he had that improvement into his third run.

"With Tyler's claim I think he gets in great at the weights, dropping from a 78 to a 72 and taking the high profile trainers of out of the way."

The Newcastle trainer admits he was disappointed with Royal Banquet's last start fifth behind Papal Warrior and Tycoonist, both subsequent winners, at Rosehill three weeks ago. Behind Royal Banquet in that second-up run were Matowatakpe and Taksu, who have also both won since.

Doyle isn't offering any excuses this weekend with the Midway restrictions, the race is for eligible small and medium sized metro and provincial stables, working in his favour.

Although Royal Banquet, $4.40 with TAB on Thursday, has won four of his eight starts Doyle has resisted adding blinkers until now.

"He's always shown us he needed blinkers and we were waiting for the right time to throw them on,'' he said.

"I think Saturday is that time to bring them out and hopefully we can see the best of him.

"I don't like to put them on until you need them. You like to have that couple of lengths up your sleeve for when you get up to that better class of race.

"If he didn't have that niggling injury he could have been a nice horse but there's no issues with him now, he's free and sound. If we see a bit of rain about they'll know he's there."

Doyle indicated that Royal Banquet will be ridden in a positive fashion with the blinkers on from his awkward alley.

He'll be back at Randwick next week with consistent mare Café Royal and new acquisition Hard Landing in Benchmark 78 races and is planning to be a regular player in the Midway races later in the year.

"We tipped a couple out a couple of months ago to target these sort of races,'' he said.

"In time we will have plenty of runners but they are probably five or six weeks away."