The Canterbury quarantine centre will turn Godolphin blue for The Championships as Newmarket trainer Charlie Appleby will be the only international raider this year.

Godolphin's trainer will send Polarisation and Penglai Pavilion for the Sydney Cup, while Gold Trail will be trained out of Sydney for the Mornington Cup. They will have exclusive use of Canterbury as it becomes a quarantine centre from next month.

It was a somewhat disappointing return for Racing NSW and the Australian Turf Club, which had looked like having about half dozen international runners last month. But a couple of Japanese prospects fell by the wayside.

"We had strong interest with 29 northern hemisphere nominations but it is a difficult time of year to get horses here. There is a lot of competition," said James Ross, general manager of racing, wagering and international.

"We had four horses in the past month pull out because of form or injury after getting to the stage of organising feed and staff visas, which shows the challenges of getting horses to travel.

"We have a good base and awareness of the meeting and it is only going to continue to grow."

Appleby has target stayers at the bottom of the weights for the Sydney Cup however there is a touch of class in Penglai Pavilion, which ran fifth in Treve's  Arc De Triomphe in 2013. While the trainer  labelled Polarisation "more a dour stayer".

"They are very similar profiles to the team we brought over to Melbourne in the spring," Appleby said. "We have targeted horses which will enjoy the style of racing over there. They have both been jumping which toughens them up.

"Penglai Pavilion had one of his career highs in finishing fifth in the Arc and after that he went jumping with some success.

"He has a class element to him and a good level of ability this horse. It is good to have him back in the yard.

"Polarisation is a different type of horse; he is a dour stayer, but very straightforward."

Penglai Pavilion has raced during the Cheltenham jumping festival and made his return to flat racing at Royal Ascot last year. He was at Newmarket over 3600m in September before being well beaten in the group 1 Prix Royal Oaks at St Cloud in October.

Polarisation has not raced since running fourth at Doncaster over 2920m in September, but has been prepared in Dubai for the Australia trip with Penglai Pavilion and Gold Trail. They have been in quarantine from the past couple of weeks.

Polarisation and Penglai Pavilion might need to win a race to get into the Sydney Cup. Penglai Pavilion only has 50.5kg and Polarisation 50kg.

Appleby will hunt the exemption from the Caulfield Cup ballot in the Mornington Cup with Gold Trail and he could run in Sydney if the weather is dry.

"He is a fast ground horse and I have been told that Sydney at that time of year the ground could be on the easier side, which really sits the other two runners," Appleby said.

"We will give the two horses in Sydney a prep run in the Chairman's Handicap before Sydney Cup and we hope they can measure up like the ones in the spring.

"We are still learning what are the right horses to bring and talking with John O'Shea has help us but until you get there you don't really know."

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