Torio's Quest will start in the Toorak Handicap

After one of the bizarre and unfortunate incidents during the spring carnival so far Torio’s Quest is back and ready to make amends in the 2011 Toorak Handicap.

Torio’s Quest was meant to run in the Shannon Stakes at Rosehill but after shifting in the mounting yard and throwing his rider he escaped onto the track before running through a rail and ending up in the car park.

Thankfully though he suffered nothing more than a minor abrasion and is good to go at Caulfield this Saturday.

Trainer Brett Partelle travelled down to Melbourne with both Torio’s Quest and stablemate Tasos and said things couldn’t have gone better.

“They travelled down very well, I was very happy with the way they came off the float…they’ve settled in really good,” he said.

Partelle is assuring punters the horse is feeling no ill effects from two weeks ago.

“He’s gone along really good, it was a hiccup we didn’t want but we’ve improvised,” he said.

Torio’s Quest drew gate seven in the 14 horse field for the Toorak Handicap, a position that should his style just about perfectly.

” Probably he should be sort of mid field …if he can get on the back of something and be two deep and then three deep when eh straightens,” Partelle said.

The trainer is also pleased with the little bit of rain they’ve had around Melbourne this week and says if forecasts are correct it should be perfect.

“There’ll be no excuses if he gets that sort of surface,” he said.

Partelle is also confident the horse will be fit enough to win the race even though he missed out on that crucial race gallop.

“He hasn’t missed any work since then,” he said.

“On Sunday he swum then he had that exhibition gallop, we didn’t muck around on him we went pretty hard.”

As for the stablemate, things look pretty tough for Tasos as the six year old runs into the biggest challenge in the world of horse racing, Black Caviar in the Schillaci Stakes.

“I think he’s going to see plenty of her bum, we’ll go around anyway and see if we can pick up a cheque for the owners,” he said.

“I’m sure he won’t disgrace himself but when you come out against the world’s best horse you don’t really expect to win.”