KEY POINTS:
If El Perez can get the money in tomorrow's $100,000 Opunake Cup it will be a magical training performance by the Logan/Gibbs stable.
It will also be a wonderful endorsement for beach training.
El Perez goes up against the likes of not only talented but seasoned horses Don't Ya Lovett, Baltaine, Kenadaad and Floydeboy but without having raced for 10 months.
The fact that he has not even had a barrier trial does not concern his trainers.
"We've got to know the old bloke and we're pretty happy with where he is," says Donna Logan.
Where that is, she believes, is fit enough to do battle with some of New Zealand's best gallopers in what is certain to be a very tough race.
"He's had only two exhibition gallops, but he's been able to do a lot of hard yakka in the deep sand here at the beach."
El Perez was spelled when he struck a suspensory problem after finishing unplaced behind Pentane at Paeroa last September.
"It wasn't a tear in the suspensory, probably just a bad bang - on a scale of 1 to 10 it was a 1 - but we didn't take any chances with him and put him out.
"He didn't need this amount of time out of racing, but there was no point in bringing him in on the hard tracks of summer.
"We waited for the wet tracks and they're well and truly here now."
Logan said rain on the day tomorrow would be a great result for El Perez.
"He'll be in this race for a long way."
El Perez will be ridden for the first time by Chris Johnson.
Logan said the stable's options beyond this race are the Winter Cup at Riccarton and a couple of handicap races in Melbourne.
"We'd look at Melbourne if the tracks remained wet there."
