Seemingly there was rather more to Whisky Baron’s below-par performance in the Jebel Hatta in Dubai 16 days ago than simply a flat run – although Brett Crawford is playing his cards close to his chest.

Whisky Baron (Liesl King)

The Philippi trainer, asked by Grant Knowles about last year’s Sun Met winner in a Tellytrack interview at Durbanville on Saturday, said: “We were very disappointed with that last run but there were reasons for it. We are busy hard at work on that and we are on top of it. We just need to get him back where he should be.”

Crawford, asked afterwards whether the reasons were physical or mental, would only say: “They are in-house.”

Normally one of the most open in the business, Crawford added: ”They were affecting his performance and I have no doubt resulted in him running the way he did. We just need to get him right.

“He could have run on World Cup night but I felt it would be unfair to run him again so soon without getting to the bottom of his issues and three weeks wasn’t enough.”

In the Knowles interview Crawford seemed to indicate that there could be a doubt about the horse making the Queen Elizabeth II Cup in Hong Kong on April 29 when he said: “You can be assured that if we take him to Hong Kong he will be in top form.”

However he said afterwards that the horse will run in the US$3 million (R35 million) ten furlong Grade 1.

By Michael Clower