It has been a frustrating few months for Rob Britton who has watched Tornado Tears taste defeat in five Group 1 races as the odds-on favourite.

This morning on Off The Leash with Molly Haines and George Farrugia, Rob talked about the new pattern that has crept into Batman’s usually faultless racing pattern.

“He has been hitting the running rail a number of times during his races,” Rob said.

“I think it’s because he was leading and sitting second early and now when he gets back into fourth and fifth position, he is cutting the corner on the bends and then hitting the running rail.”

“It’s certainly causing us some grief because there isn’t a lot we can do other than maybe change tracks and hope it doesn’t happen somewhere else.”

“Not only does it throw him off balance it probably hurts.”

Thursday night at Albion Park, Tornado Tears will line up in the hand selected four dog Super Stayers over the 710 metre distance.

The same race he broke the track record in last year.

Group 3 Fast Times at Stud Superstayers box draw (710m)
1) Ella Enchanted – Brook Ennis
3) Tornado Tears – Rob Britton
5) Bago Bluff – Darren Russell
7) Bago Bye Bye – Darren Russell

“It’s an elite field and it doesn’t matter which way you look at it, every dog in that race has got to be beaten and that’s not going to be an easy task,” Rob told Molly and George on Off The Leash.

“There are a number of people saying that he isn’t racing with confidence but at the end of the day if you watch the Gold Cup replay he makes four genuine runs in the race. Even on the line he was still coming home.”

“At no point did he cuck in the towel. I come away from the race thinking that he tried hard and everything went wrong that could possibly go wrong.  I’m not panicking at this stage.”