Gordon's Australian expedition Tom Hogan's dual Group One winner Gordon Lord Byron will fly out to Australia next month to take part in the inaugural running of The Championships at Royal Randwick in April. The Prix de la Foret and Betfred Sprint Cup winner was last seen finishing a highly-creditable fourth in the Hong Kong Mile at Sha Tin in early December and Hogan is looking forward to seeing his stable star compete for huge prize-money in Australia. The six-year-old's first target is the Group One WFA George Ryder Stakes at Rosehill Gardens, after which he will be aimed towards either the $2.5million Darley TJ Smith Stakes on day one of The Championships or the $3million The Star Doncaster Mile. Hogan said: "He goes in quarantine on February 10 and will fly to Australia in the last week of February. He'll be entered in the Doncaster Handicap and the TJ Smith Stakes on the big day on April 12 and we'll decide which race he'll run in nearer the time. "The plan would be to give him a prep race a fortnight earlier in the George Ryder Stakes over seven furlongs on March 29. The TJ Smith is a six-furlong race and the Doncaster Handicap is over a mile. He seems pretty proficient at both distances and in between. "We don't turn him out in the winter time, so he's just been ticking over since he ran in Hong Kong in December. "We'd like to think he could improve again this year and as he's a gelding, we'll just follow the money and hope he can pick up a big pot somewhere along the line. "He wants a flat track and nice ground, which it doesn't look like we're going to get in this part of the world any time soon. After he's been to Australia, he'll probably go back to Hong Kong in May." Ian Mackay, chief executive of The Championships, was delighted to hear Gordon Lord Byron will be competing at the meeting. He said: "It's wonderful to see another top-class international racehorse confirmed for The Championships. Gordon Lord Byron is a proven winner at the elite level who has run in Hong Kong, Dubai and France."
