The Shogun Lodge team can bleat all they like about getting beaten in Saturday's $A500,000 Doomben Cup, the race belonged to grossly underrated New Zealander King Keitel.
And trainer Paul Jenkins was so confident the $15 chance could beat the Australian guns he declared he would have gone home with an empty wallet if King Keitel had been beaten.
"The more I looked around at the races yesterday, the more confident I became," said Jenkins from Brisbane last night.
"King Keitel was beaten by De Gaulle Lane last week and when he won earlier in the day it made my horse's form look good.
"And when I looked at Shogun Lodge I was pretty confident we could beat him, he looked burly and looked as though he had a couple of problems."
Shogun Lodge is a physically gross type and his connections were crying foul after twice being refused permission to gallop the horse on the course proper at the Gold Coast track midweek.
Rider Glen Boss said Shogun Lodge definitely felt the effects of missing that work in the closing stages of the Doomben Cup when King Keitel galloped powerfully to the finish.
Shogun Lodge started at odds-on, but had no answer to the little-fancied King Keitel.
"If the course proper had been open, I know what he needed to win this race," said Shogun Lodge's trainer Bob Thomsen, who was bitterly disappointed with the outcome.
"I've trained him for 35 starts, I know what he needs."
Boss was scathing in his criticism.
"Someone at the Gold Coast should take a long hard look at themselves because they've cost my horse and his connections a group one race.
"He was gone at the 600m and it was only his big heart that got him there [second]."
Gold Coast Turf Club chairman Peter Gallagher, who witnessed Thomsen's outburst, said the decision not to allow Shogun Lodge access to the course proper had been made by club's course manager Geoff Fanning.
"The track was slow and he told us no one should be allowed to gallop," said Gallagher.
Shogun Lodge will now be spelled and set for a showdown with champion New Zealand mare Sunline when she attempts to match Kingston Town's record of three successive Cox Plate victories.
King Keitel will also be in Melbourne in the spring, but for the Caulfield Cup, not the Cox Plate.
"It's the race I've always had in mind for him," said Jenkins.
Traditional wisdom dictates that horses aiming at the Melbourne spring carnival need to be spelling pretty soon, but Jenkins is confident he can walk a knife edge with King Keitel by keeping him going for the Tatts Cup in Brisbane next month.
"It's a $A175,000 race with $A120,000 to the winner, so it's a difficult race to turn your back on.
"I'm sure I have time to take that on and give him a short, sharp one-month spell and have him back in time for Melbourne.
"The beauty of it is he's thriving up here. He came home after the race and ate up and looks bright and fresh this morning. All of that means I'll be able to turn him out without reaching the bottom of the well, which I wouldn't want to do."
After Saturday's Doomben Cup win, King Keitel is going to struggle with weight in most handicap events, but the Caulfield Cup is one race where he should sneak in with a handy weight.
Whether the European horses get to Melbourne this spring because of the tightened foot and mouth quarantine regulations is still to be determined, but they will be nominated, which will compress the handicap and push horses like King Keitel down in the weights.
"I believe we'll end up relatively well off," said Jenkins.
"He's the perfect Caulfield Cup horse because if you want him to race soft and drop back for a late run at them he'll do that and if you want him to sit on the speed, he's just as happy.
"And he's very tough."
Jenkins has an additional incentive to win the Caulfield Cup - his brother Brian won the 1998 Melbourne Cup with Jezabeel, who was very unlucky in a roughly-run Caulfield Cup two weeks earlier.
Racing: Jenkins not surprised by Cup upset
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