Jamie Osborne believes his long-term absentee Geordieland is "odds-on" to have a fourth crack at the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot next month.
The 10-year-old chased home legendary stayer Yeats twice in the two-and-a-half-mile Group One and was third in the race two years ago, but he suffered an injury at Doncaster three months later and has not been seen in competitive action since.
"It's been a fair journey through the last few months trying to get him ready," Osborne told At The Races.
"He got a leg (injury) in the 2009 Doncaster Cup and we were probably a month away from running in last year's Gold Cup and he got injured again. He came back into training in December and it was always the plan to go straight to Ascot if he was going to stand training.
"I must admit, in the past few months there have been moments when I've thought he's not going to get there, but right now, 16 days before the race, most of the work is in the bank and I'd say we're long odds-on to get there now.
"If you watched him work now, you wouldn't believe he's 10 and hasn't run for two years.
"You can't believe he's a horse that gets that sort of trip as he works with so much pace. If Yeats hadn't been around, he'd have won two Ascot Gold Cups. He was a good second twice, but ran a little bit below-par the last time he ran in it when he was third.
"I think that year he'd had quite a hard race in the Henry II Stakes at Sandown, which was only three weeks before Ascot. That was arguably the best performance of his life.
"There has always been this element with him where we think his best performance comes when he's fresh. We may be taking that break thing to the extreme when he hasn't run for two years!
"It's inevitable that there could be a bit of rustiness, but we're trying to leave no stone unturned. He's on target to get there every bit as fit, if not fitter, than he was when he won the Henry II two years ago."
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