THROW any Australian opposition into an iconic British sporting event and the stakes are instantly raised. Throw in a rough diamond like Joe Janiak and a miraculously revived deadbeat called Takeover Target and the chances are the Queen might be upstaged on opening day at Royal Ascot.
If Ascot had craved an improbable hero to launch its new course, Janiak would have been rejected as just too implausible. He has scraped a living as a baker and a taxi driver, spent the last ten years living in a caravan and had never left Australia until boarding a flight to London three weeks ago.
What brought him here, and accompanied him on the flight, was the remarkable sprinter who has made Janiak famous in his homeland, and might soon elevate him to celebrity status over here. Takeover Target, a bad-legged son of Celtic Swing, the French Derby winner, was thought so unlikely to race effectively, if at all, that Janiak paid just £450 for him at a country auction.
“I didn’t buy him on looks or anything,” he recalled, “it was more the price. I didn’t have much to lose. But when I got him home, I thought I should have kept my mouth shut.” Four years on, Takeover Target has won almost Aus$2 million (about £800,000) and Janiak’s regrets are a thing of the past.
Lured to Europe by Ascot’s ambassadorial policy, which has also attracted fellow Australian sprinters in Glamour Puss and Falkirk, Takeover Target will run in the King’s Stand Stakes on Tuesday and again in the Golden Jubilee Stakes on Saturday, for which he is 9-2 favourite with Hills.
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Three years ago, Choisir, another Australian sprinter, memorably did the double but Jay Ford, Takeover Target’s 22-year-old jockey, said: “Our horse is a lot better credentialed than Choisir was.”
He has won ten of his 18 races, finishing unplaced only once, and his success persuaded Janiak to give up his taxi business, though he admits that he has renewed his driver’s licence, “just in case”.
The trainer, from Queanbeyan in New South Wales, to where his Polish parents emigrated in 1947, is mildly concerned that Tuesday’s five furlongs may be too sharp for his gelding but is rather more concerned about the dress code at Royal Ascot. “I’m a shorts and T-shirt man normally,” he said.
Lee Freedman, far more worldly than Janiak and Australia’s champion trainer, has sent Falkirk halfway round the world to oppose in the King’s Stand but does not expect him to run twice. Glamour Puss, however, will attempt the double and already has a win over Takeover Target to her name.
Godolphin, back in business with two recent winners, will have a thin presence on the first day of the royal meeting and look to be concentrating on the Queen Anne Stakes. Belenus and Proclamation both feature among just nine five-day declarations and the latter is expected to be the mount of Frankie Dettori.
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BIG-RACE ODDS
totesport bet: St James’s Palace Stakes: 7-4 Araafa, 5-1 Final Verse, Stormy River, 7-1 Decado, 8-1 Ivan Denisovich, Marcus Andronicus, Secret World, 14-1 others.
King’s Stand Stakes: 5-1 Takeover Target, 6-1 Moss Vale, 7-1 La Cucaracha, 9-1 Dandy Man, 10-1 others.
Queen Anne Stakes: 7-4 Proclamation, 11-4 Peeress, 3-1 Home Affairs, 10-1 Ad Valorem, Court Masterpiece, 20-1 others.