It looks a straight fight – between Tevez in the one corner and Silicone Valley in the other.

According to the handicappers the pair are two and a half lengths better than anything else in the GA MacLachlan Incorporated Pinnacle Stakes at Kenilworth tomorrow.

Dual Merchants winner Tevez runs for the first time since he lost patience with the starter in a similar race two months ago and smashed his way through the gates. Now reunited with his favourite jockey, he is out to recover the losses of April 22 when he started hot favourite only to weaken just as he looked like going on to win.

Tevez (Liesl King)

He had been off for 12 weeks that time but Silicone Valley was returning after a break of nearly four months when overcoming a slow start to finish second in a 1 400m Pinnacle last time. He was also classy enough to take fifth in the Queen’s Plate. But tomorrow’s 1 200m looks on the short side – or does it?

“Most of his wins have come over 1 200m,” points out Glen Puller. “He wasn’t 100% last time and he would have come on a bit from that.”

What swings it his way, in the writer’s view, is the Merchants last December. He was only beaten half a length by Mercury Sprint fancy Search Party that day and was giving him 4.5kg. Tevez, admittedly conceding 2kg, was over two and a half lengths further back.

But it may not be quite as straightforward as this because Tevez is getting old – he will be eight next month – and his injury-prone rival has had more blows than a boxer’s sparring partner.

Villa Del Largo is rated 3kg behind the top two – in other words he could win but shouldn’t – while Jet Air’s ten month absence surely counts him out.

Line Break was only half a length behind Tevez in the April 22 race and can be excused last time’s flop because he was found to be coughing and not striding out afterwards.

Purple Mountains is 5kg wrong with the top two and Canigao has been off since February but Power Grid can go a fair bit despite the muscle deformity that causes one leg to swing like a pendulum. He might get into the shake-up. But win? No.

In the first there is precious little between Endofmarch and The Judicator. The latter was finishing the better last time but he has had more chances so the vote goes to Domeyer’s mount while Cardinal Call is weighted to reverse the placings with Cortada in the Mortgage Max Handicap.

By Michael Clower