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By Ray Hickson

Joe Pride is doing his best to treat Saturday’s $20 million TAB Everest as just another horse race.

Trainer Joe Pride (Pic: Bradley Photos)

It’s not easy when you have two of the leading chances in the world’s richest race on turf – proven elite galloper Private Eye and rising star Think About It – but once they step onto the track Pride’s involvement is finished and a 1200m race is all the Everest will be.

A bit like Harry Telford saying Phar Lap wasn’t just a horse? If Private Eye or Think About It are first past the post at Royal Randwick on Saturday it surely won’t be just a horse race.

Pride said it’s important to have perspective, given world events of late, but is nonetheless excited to have two winning chances.

“You put the prizemoney aside, you’ve got to treat it like another race,’’ he said.

“This week you’ve got a lot of things happening in the news and those things make you think it’s just a horse race.

“I’ve got my job to do, a team at home to get horses ready for this race. It’s pretty simple stuff, it feels like we’ve nailed the preparation and once the gates open it’s up to what happens after that.”

Private Eye was once thought of as a miler, having won an Epsom at four, but Pride re-invented the gelding last spring and he almost stole the TAB Everest, going down to Giga Kick’s late surge.

He went missing in the autumn, a combination of wet tracks and a knee issue contributing, but burst back into contention with a dynamic, and tough, first-up win in the Group 2 The Shorts (1100m) a month ago.

Pride said the path with Private Eye, $6 with TAB on Thursday, has been simpler to chart than with Think About It, $4.60 favourite, the winning machine who keeps stepping up to each challenge.

“It was planned from a fair way out, very deliberately each horse’s preparation has been tailor made for what I thought they would need so hopefully we’ve got that right,’’ he said.

“Both seem to be coming to hand at the right time. It was a little bit easier with Private Eye because I’ve been here and done it before, with the other horse I’ve brought him out of a winter campaign where I’m still finding out a lot about him.”

After his win in The Shorts, Pride said there was a couple of lengths improvement in Private Eye but more importantly he feels he has the six-year-old in similar touch to last spring.

“There’s definite improvement to come. To me when he’s in form, and he wasn’t in the autumn, you’ll see him perform consistently at a high level,’’ he said.

“If you look at the Gilgai, the Everest and the Nature Strip last year, the level he was able to perform at three runs in a row that’s what I’m expecting from him.

“He wins his races by running up to his absolute best which I think he’s primed to do.”

A question Pride is consistently asked concerning Think About It is do you know how good he is given he doesn’t seem to know how to lose.

He’s won 10 of his 11 starts and you could mount a case he was unfortunate not to win the other.

His first-up win in the Group 2 Premiere Stakes (1200m) two weeks ago saw Think About It out of his comfort zone but Pride said the fact he was able to still win, with improvement fitness wise to come, shows a glimpse of his class.

“I think everybody expected him to win the other day because of his price,’’ he said.

“He found himself in a difficult position but overcame that as he always seems to be able to do.

Think About It wins the Premiere Stakes

“He goes into the race with a run under his belt which is only going to make him better and he’s had a good couple of weeks.”

Before the barrier draw Pride wanted gate four for Private Eye and six for Think About It. He was handed nine and five respectively and in Think About It’s case his was just about perfect.

Pride said for the five-year-old to have his best chance to win an Everest on Saturday will be in a genuinely run race.

“I think he needs things to unfold for him a bit, his best runs are off a good tempo,’’ he said.

“I’d hate to see him in a slowly run race off the pace because I think he’d struggle. If he can get a genuine run race it won’t matter where he is he will be in the finish.”

All the fields, form and replays for TAB Everest Day at Randwick on Saturday