Appalachian On The Winning Trail Appalachian Trail will attempt to justify an entry in next month's totesport Ayr Gold Cup when he runs over six furlongs for the first time in his 32-race career at Newmarket tomorrow.Ian Semple's tough and consistent five-year-old has been acquitting himself well in some valuable contests of late and was last seen finishing third over a mile at Ascot's Shergar Cup meeting.The Lanark-based handler admits his run at the weekend will be something of a fact-finding mission but feels his charge can go well once again. 'The owners are keen to head down the Ayr Gold Cup path with him so we thought we'd run him over six (furlongs) and see if he's sharp enough,' Semple explained.'He's never run over six before and to be fair, seven looks to be his ideal trip. But sometimes in the Ayr Gold Cup you want a seven-furlong horse.'They'll go very fast in that and I'm sure it'll be the same at Newmarket but the ground just might have gone against him a little bit ? he handles the softer going but he's a better horse on top of the ground.'It's a bit of an experiment but hopefully we can drop him in and they might just come back to him ? he's overdue a turn and we're hoping for the best.'(C) PA Sport
