Veyron will carry the lowest weight he has been allotted in New Zealand since his Gr.1 Easter Handicap win in 2011.
This will be when he contests Saturday's Gr.3 $70,000 Eagle Technology Stakes (1600m) at Ellerslie.
The Linda Laing-trained five-time Group One winner has been given 57kg under the set weights and penalties conditions of the race, the same weight he carried to win the Easter, his first Group One win coming at the culmination of a four-race winning streak.While Veyron did carry 57kg in last year's Gr.1 Epsom Handicap at Randwick, carrying topweights in handicaps has become common place for the Thorn Park nine-year-old gelding when he's not tackling weight-for-age races.
"It's been a long time since he's carried 57 kilos. He won't know himself," Laing said.Veyron won the Eagle Technology Stakes in 2011 carrying 58kg but because he hasn't won a Group One race since the 2012 Zabeel Classic at Ellerslie, he has been handicapped on his Gr.2 Warwick Stakes (1400m) win in Sydney last August.
Veyron has taken time to get back to fitness this preparation with Laing reporting that he was holding his condition much better than past campaigns.He ran an improved race for fourth in the Gr.3 Tauranga Stakes (1600m) earlier this month, fighting well after setting the pace.
"Unfortunately when he jumped out at Tauranga, he went down on his nose in the first stride and cut a hind leg," Laing said."There was a fair bit of blood when he came back to scale but that's healed up well. It was a good run under the circumstances and his work has been good since. He comes right this time of year and he'll acquit himself well on Saturday."
Safely through Saturday's race, Veyron will progress to the Zabeel Classic (2000m) at Ellerslie on Boxing Day."We're going race by race but we'd like to have another shot at the Zabeel Classic. He'll go into that without another run but he'll probably have an exhibition gallop somewhere in between," Laing said.
