Inside knowledge is telling Geoff Haigh that his promising galloper High Quality will cope with a testing Trentham track on Saturday.

“His half-sister Quality Royal handled heavy ground so I reckon he will without a problem,” the Levin trainer said.

Haigh, who prepared Quality Royal to win all three of her races on rain-affected going, is therefore bullish about High Quality’s prospects in the Sporting Tours Melbourne Cup Tours Handicap.

“He’s a decent horse and he’ll appreciate the mile and even further later on,” he said.

High Quality finished runner-up on debut in the spring before he broke his maiden next time out and was then given a break.

The son of Handsome Ransom returned to finish fourth last month at Tauherenikau where he had a valid excuse for not finishing closer.

“He got galloped on and lost a bit of skin off his hind leg,” said Haigh, who co-bred and part-owns the four-year-old. “He’s fine now and I would expect him to run pretty well.”

He prepares a small team from his Levin base and is looking forward to the return in the near future of the well-related Constant Barrage.

The highly-regarded four-year-old was an impressive debut winner in November and then ran fourth behind the subsequent Group One performer Devise at Trentham before he was turned out.

“He had a jump-out last week and he’ll have one more and maybe a trial before we find a race for him in the next month,” Haigh said.

“He’ll probably have a light preparation, we’ll just keep ticking him over and let him develop a bit more.”

Raced by his breeder John Perkins, Constant Barrage is a brother to Broadside who won two of his three starts for Haigh before his sale to Australian interests.

The son of Raise The Flag has since won a further two races from the Randwick stable of Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. He runs in a $A100,000 mile at Randwick on Saturday.