Will there be a Rocket on Black Caviar’s tail?

When – or if – the much-anticipated clash between Black Caviar and Rocket Man takes place, it should live up to its hype.

If Racing Victoria can pull it off by luring Rocket Man (pictured winning on Sunday) from Singapore for the $1 million Group 1 Patinack Farm Classic (1200m) at the Melbourne Cup carnival at Flemington this spring, it will be a beauty.

And there’s no way “our girl”, Black Caviar (13 wins from 13 starts), is “past the post” despite her brilliance – those at Kranji in Singapore last night to see saw Rocket Man’s sensational win in the $S1 million Group 1 KrisFlyer International Sprint (1200m) can vouch for that.

At the very least Peter Moody’s great mare will have to be at the top of her game to hold out Australian-bred Rocket Man (b g 5, Viscount-Macrosa (NZ), by McGinty (NZ)).

The ease of Rocket Man’s soft 4¾-length win showed that Singapore-based South African trainer Patrick Shaw was justified in saying about a potential clash with Australia’s five-time Group 1 winner Black Caviar, “We’re happy to take her on … I’ve seen her and she is a great mare, but Rocket Man is better than she is.”

International handicappers rate Black Caviar the world’s best sprinter by lengths (and the world’s best horse for the sixth months from October to March), but she has met only local opponents in Australia and there is no question that Rocket Man is the best international sprinter – he has won his past two Global Sprint Challenge sprints (the 1200m Golden Shaheen on the Tapeta track at Meydan in Dubai, and the KrisFlyer on turf) and has finished second in his four other international Group 1 attempts, and with luck could have won them all … as it is, his record is a brilliant 16 wins from 20 starts.

While Shaw has indicated he is keen to come, and that he will inspect the Werribee quarantine facility at Racing Victoria’s invitation in a couple of weeks, a decision won’t be made for some time – after the July Cup (1200m) at Newmarket, England and/or a spell, connections can choose between Japan’s Sprinters Stakes (1200m) at Nakayama in October, Melbourne in November and Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific International Sprint in December, all legs of the Global Sprint Challenge.

(England’s recruiter Nick Smith was in Singapore to offer Rocket Man’s connections assistance in getting to Newmarket, as were Racing Victoria’s Leigh Jordon and the Victoria Racing Club’s chairman Rod Fitzroy for Melbourne.)

The VRC has arranged a $600,000 sweetener as a bonus on top of the first prize if Rocket Man wins the $1 million sprint at Flemington, and it would be a wonderful boost to the spring carnival if connections take up the challenge to provide a match for Black Caviar, who thrilled race fans in Melbourne with wins in the Lightning, the Newmarket and the William Reid, in Sydney (a win in the TJ Smith) and Brisbane (a win in the BTC Cup) before going to the paddock.

Last night Rocket Man ($6 favourite for a $5 unit, or 1/5 in old terms) won the KrisFlyer by almost five lengths from Eclair Fastpass and Perfect Pins, also Singapore-trained. He jumped well, raced three wide as others booted up under him, settled third, went to the front on the turn and made the race a one-act affair in the straight. His former KrisFlyer conquerors, Hong Kong’s Sacred Kingdom (2009) and Green Birdie (2010), finished sixth and seventh.

Melbourne jockey Steven Arnold, who finished eighth on Capablanca, said: “Rocket Man was in a league of his own.”

Felix Coetzee, on the winner, said: “These champions help you, they tell you what to do … I’m just the guy who sits on top.”

The win was a South African bonanza. Shaw, of course is from there, as is Coetzee, who was the great Silent Witness’ partner in Hong Kong when he won 17 races straight. And the owner is Johannesburg-based businessman Fred Crabbia.

For most on course at Kranji, the win overshadowed the major Group 1 of the meeting, the $S3 million Singapore Airlines International Cup (2000m), also a South African bonanza and also a race of huge significance for Victoria this spring with the winner, Gitano Hernando, a probable runner in the Melbourne Cup.

Gitano Hernando is trained by South African Herman Brown and was ridden by Sydney-based South African jockey Glyn Schofield – the pair combined to finish third behind Shocking in the 2009 Melbourne Cup with Mourilyan, owned by controversial Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who bought the Hernando five-year-old recently.

Last night, Gitano Hernando ($73, or almost 14/1) beat Another South African, the mare River Jetez, with Hong Kong’s Irian (Darren Beadman) dead-heating for third with Singapore’s Waikato.

Brown said the Melbourne Cup was an option for the winner, but his father, Herman Brown Snr, a former champion trainer who was representing Kadyrov at the meeting, said Australia’s greatest race was firmly on the agenda.

Schofield was to have ridden Gitano Hernando when he was unplaced in the Queen Elizabeth II Cup in Hong Kong earlier in the month, but broke his collarbone in a fall in the Sydney Cup the week before and Damien Oliver filled in.

Grateful that Brown put him back on, Schofield said: “He travelled really sweetly and then he showed a lovely turn of foot when I asked him … I knew my horse was tiring but he was brave all the way to the finish.”

Brown said he thought the 2000 metres would have been a bit short for him – sounds like a Melbourne Cup horse in the making.