SWEAT AND TEARS FOR CHALICE OF GOLD

The Kosi’ show is on but anyone can be the star in a handicap like the S’pore Gold Cup

- Brian Miller

If you are reading this, chances are you have your plans for Saturday all figured out.

After an early lunch - or brunch - you will be heading to the Kranji racecourse where the Singapore Gold Cup is to be run at 5.20pm.

There, you will probably hang around the mounting yard, drooling over those equine marvels as they parade before the big event.

By then, you would have also placed your bets, slips safely residing in your shirt pocket.

Later, when the race is run and depending on how your luck holds, you would either be smiling from ear to ear or mope at the thought of it going down the drain.

You will then head home and for you, another Gold Cup race would have been over and done with.

Sunday will be just another day.

But what about the other "players"? The ones whose bread and butter depend on how fast and far their horses can go on four legs.

They are the trainers, jockeys and stable staff.

Down to a man, they will be up and about bright and early on Sunday morning to work towards the next - and unfortunately, last Singapore Gold Cup.

For them, there are the four "P's". Preparation. Performance. Patience. Prestige.

To the rest of us, these are mere words. But to the main players in this racing spectacle, it is part of their DNA. Invisible. Indispensable. Inseparable.