A race-eve side deal will ensure the stakes are raised even higher for a colt rated as one of the main threats to the world's best sprinter Nature Strip winning the $15 million Everest for a second time.
In a race fashioned out of negotiations between stables, racehorse owners and the 12 slot holders who each pay $600,000 for a piece of the action, the overnight sale of three-year-old Jacquinot may turn out to be the biggest coup linked to this year's sprint at Randwick.
One of the brightest young prospects in Australian racing, Jacquinot has been sold to a syndicate linked to historic Widden Stud.
Breeding industry insiders consider Widden's move to acquire an interest in Jacquinot a genuine coup that is spiced with irony because the three-year-old is an Everest runner in the slot belonging to rival farm Coolmore Stud.
Coolmore is a giant of the global thoroughbred scene, expanding its reach from Ireland to Australia and the United States.
Jacquinot was born and raised at Coolmore and carries bloodlines that are synonymous with the stud.
But instead of Coolmore securing the colt for their roster, its NSW Hunter Valley neighbour, backed by Sheikh Fahad's Qatar Racing, pounced to lock up Jacquinot's future as a stallion.
"The improvement he has taken into his three year-old season has put Jacquinot at the very top of the sprinting colts division," Widden's Antony Thompson, owner of the 150-year-old stud, said.
As a Group One winner, Jacquinot is already a valuable colt.
But a victory over the country's best sprinters at Randwick on Saturday will make him one of the Australian breeding industry's more marketable stallions.
And Nature Strip's all-conquering trainer Chris Waller says Jacquinot represents a new challenge for his champion sprinter.
"Jacquinot is an exciting factor because he gets a weight allowance for being a three-year-old,'' Waller said.
"Obviously it's an intriguing race with young horses running in the race, new horses, horses that have been there the last few years. It's what makes the Everest a great race."
Waller can speak with authority on the chances of a three-year-old upsetting Nature Strip.
He trained Yes Yes Yes to win in 2019 as Nature Strip weakened late to miss a top-three placing.
But Nature Strip, despite being an elder statesman of Australian racing, is getting better with age.
And in jockey James McDonald's eyes he is a deserved favourite after winning a Sydney lead-up race in September following his success at Royal Ascot in June.
"He's feeling unbelievable, he's in a real purple patch of form," McDonald said.
"If it's anything to go by, how he's stretching out, he's really in the zone."
So too is McDonald, who has ridden three Group One winners over the first two days of the Caulfield Cup carnival in Melbourne to confirm his standing as the nation's premier rider.
