Trainer Sue Grills is confident defending titleholder Border Rebel is going as well as he was 12 months ago heading into Friday's Listed Takeover Target Stakes at Gosford.But whether or not that will be good enough is her pressing concern."I think he is going as well but it's probably a harder race this year," Grills said.Trainer John McNair, who will start My Vegas and Royal Discretion in the $100,000 sprint, said earlier in the week that the Gai Waterhouse-trained Squamosa had a stranglehold o

Trainer Sue Grills is confident defending titleholder Border Rebel is going as well as he was 12 months ago heading into Friday's Listed Takeover Target Stakes at Gosford.

But whether or not that will be good enough is her pressing concern.

"I think he is going as well but it's probably a harder race this year," Grills said.

Trainer John McNair, who will start My Vegas and Royal Discretion in the $100,000 sprint, said earlier in the week that the Gai Waterhouse-trained Squamosa had a stranglehold on the feature.

Grills also rates the colt, a brilliant first-up winner of the June Stakes, as the benchmark.

"He's got to be very hard to beat," Grills said.

"And we've got to give him weight."

Border Rebel has contested tougher lead-up assignments this time in with a first-up win in a Listed race in April and successive fourths at Scone and in the Group One Doomben 10,000.

His last-start flop in the Stradbroke Handicap blotted his copybook but Grills said the race didn't pan out for him after he was shuffled back and never got in the hunt.

"He's a leader, he's normally up front and we tried to ride him a little bit quieter but he got back further than we wanted," Grills said.

"He's not a horse who comes from the back."

Tim Clark has the mount with stable apprentice and the gelding's regular rider Timothy Bell on loan to Brisbane trainer Kelly Schweida for a month.

Bell won the Takeover Target on Border Rebel last year when the race was marred by a two-horse fall in the straight which resulted in Kerrin McEvoy fracturing a vertebra after crashing heavily from Skytrain.

His trainer Peter Snowden said Skytrain was mentally scarred by the incident for some time but finally appeared to have turned the corner.

While slightly disappointed with his first-up fifth in the June Stakes, Snowden said Skytrain had worked well since.

"It (the fall) shattered him. He wasn't the same horse," Snowden said.

"Hisfirst-up run was fair but I think he's shown a good bit of improvement since then.

"His work on Saturday morning was very good, the best he's worked this time through, so I'm expecting a better run."

A field of 15 will line up in the Takeover Target Stakes (1200m) which is the second-last race on the bumper 10-event card.