Owen Burrows confirms a bid at Longchamp’s Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe for his King George hero Hukum.
The Lambourn-based trainer will prepare to send his stable star straight to the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe on the back of his gigantic tussle with Westover in the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes.
Burrows, who was enjoying his finest day in his training career on Saturday, said: "I owe him a lot. He's been around for a while; he was my first Royal Ascot winner and my first Group 1 winner.
"We travelled him to Dubai after the sad passing of Sheikh Hamdan and that was a big thing for him to win over there on Super Saturday as well.
"He's been a tremendous horse in my career, and he'll be very hard to replace, but we'll enjoy him while we can."
He added: "He's all well this morning. He ate up and he's been out and had a lead out and a nice pick of grass and trotted up sound, so touch wood all good."
Hukum was cut to a general 7/1 for the Arc that will take place on the first weekend in October and Owen Burrows was keen to confirm that trip is still very much the plan.
"The Arc is something like eight weeks today and that is the obvious plan now. The plan has always been King George in the summer and then trying to get him to France in the beginning of October and now we can start dreaming."
There was plenty of speculation about Hukum's preferred ground conditions leading up to Saturday's feature at Ascot, but Burrows is willing to stress his horse's versatility.
He added: "He would go on faster ground, and it was pretty quick in the Sheema Classic when he was only beaten a length and three-quarters.
"But he's obviously had a hard enough race there yesterday and knowing we can get him cherry ripe following a layoff, I don't think we need to be giving him a prep run.
"I would love to get him to the Arc, and I think we would be talking about soft ground. Yesterday Jim [Crowley] felt it was a little bit dead ground, there wasn't a lot of life in it. He handles most ground, but he obviously handles soft ground very well and we can dream."
The trainer was more than happy to admit Hukum's success left him feeling slightly shocked and pledges to make sure he responds to all those that congratulated him in one way or another.
"It's been quite busy and I'm literally sitting down trying to work through all the messages, but it is going to take me a while," he explained.
"I'll admit yesterday I was a bit shellshocked, but now it is finally sinking in and what a day, what a great day.
"I've not been at it too long [training], but it was well documented this horse [Hukum] was injured at Epsom last year and to get him back to this level is a huge team effort. From the guys at Shadwell who rehabbed him, to my guys here at Farncombe, it's a big big team effort."
