KEY POINTS:
Cog Hill fans might have until 3.55pm tomorrow to grab the $10-fixed odds price for the horse in the Thorndon Mile.
That's when the Stradbroke Handicap placegetter fine-tunes his Trentham preparation with Opie Bosson aboard in the Sharp Mile at Ellerslie.
It's a race Pukekohe trainer Richard Collett hopes will prove he's somewhere close to his best, even allowing for the 61kg topweight.
The winner of 10 races from 34 starts badly needed his last-start blow-out when third in Bulginbaah's Higgins Challenge Stakes on December 22.
"They went hard and he chased them a bit early," said Collett. "I thought it was a damn good run; you really couldn't expect more for that stage of his preparation and he knew he'd had a race ."
Collett sidestepped the Rich Hill Mile at Ellerslie nine days later to focus on winning the Thorndon; a race he believes is made-to-order on the roomy Trentham surface.
"I think it a track where he's more capable of winning a decent mile," he said.
Collett said there's been no sign of the minor heart strain that plagued his stable star after his spring campaign.
All he needs now is a break from the handicapper at Trentham.
Cog Hill was allotted a testing 58kg in the Rich Hill, but Collett is praying that Sir Slick's Thorndon presence will push him a little further down the handicap for the group one feature on January 26.
* Smart three-year-old Il Divo also takes another step toward his group one target at Ellerslie tomorrow.
But Matamata trainer John Sargent isn't demanding a win from his big Mercedes Derby hope in the First Crop One Cool Cat Mile.
Il Divo drops back in distance from a last-start second in the 2100m Great Northern Guineas and jumps to 58kg in the handicap.
"Our option was to go to the Wellington Stakes next week or stay up here and tick over for the Derby," said Sargent.
"This is just another run really toward that and I'm not overly hopeful of a win, but he's fit and well and good horses can do it."
