Alice Haynes relishing Arlington Million Challenge with Cairo

Alice Haynes shares an exclusive blog with Coral, with her runner Cairo taking part in Saturday's Arlington Million Challenge at Colonial Downs.

• Cairo - Colonial Downs - 10:54pm BST race odds

I arrived at Colonial Downs on Tuesday, and the early indications are they cannot do enough for us here, they have opened up the turf track for us to give Cairo a canter, and it looks to be a great surface.  The horse himself left England last Wednesday, arrived in New York on Thursday, and after two days in quarantine, was boxed down to Virginia, an eight hour journey.

He's an old pro now when it comes to travelling, so he’s taken it all in his stride, and acclimatised well.  The temperature is cooler than it was here last week apparently, so while it’s still warm, it’s more comfortable for him now.  He had a couple of canters on the dirt when he first got here, and his latest work has been on the turf as I say, under his big race pilot Ben Curtis.

Ben actually contacted us when he saw we were running the horse over here, and I think he will be a really good fit for the horse.  He's obviously got plenty of experience riding European horses, but he's been in America long enough now to have the local knowledge as well, which I think could be really important in a race like this.

Going into Royal Ascot, I did feel the horse was as well as we’ve ever had him, he was absolutely flying at home so I had high hopes he would run a big race, but even so, to finish third in a field of that quality did surprise me, in the best possible way obviously!

I'd always thought that coming to America would suit him, and having discussed it with the owner going into Ascot we very much had it in our minds.  He still needed to run a big race at Ascot to make the trip viable, but of course he produced that big run.  The team from Colonial Downs were at the track that day, and chatting to them after the Queen Anne really did make up our mind to come here.

There is some real quality in this line-up, there’s a former Kentucky Derby winner - Mystik Dan - having his first start on turf, while favourite Integration looks the one to beat.  There should be pace in the race, so we can sit off that, and then hopefully get first run on Integration, who likes to be further back early on.  We're under no illusions about the task we face though, and realistically, finishing in the first three would be a tremendous achievement.

The plan after this weekend is to send him down to Keeneland to be based with Ed Vaughan, and aim him at a very richly-endowed race at Kentucky Downs.  After that the ground is likely to go against him out here, and we’d bring him back home.  In the meantime, it is just so exciting to be involved in a big international race like this, it really is what we have worked so hard to achieve.

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