horse behind Maybe Mahal to win Flemington's three major Group 1 sprints: the Salinger Stakes, Lightning Stakes and Newmarket Handicap. These wins resulted in Takeover Target being invited to compete in the Royal Ascot carnival in June in the United Kingdom. His British campaign started successfully when he won the Group 2 King's Stand Stakes on 20 June 2006, defeating Benbaun. He then finished third behind Les Arcs in the Group 1 Golden Jubilee Stakes four days later and seventh behind Les Arcs in the Group 1 July Cup at Newmarket Racecourse, beaten two lengths. After his King's Stand Stakes win, Takeover Target was declared the best sprinter in the world on turf by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities with a rating of 118, which improved to 121 with a win in Japan later in the year. At the end of the 2005–06 season, Takeover Target was named Australian Champion Sprinter. From England, he travelled to Japan, where he finished second in the Group 2 Centaur Stakes at Chukyo Racecourse to locally trained mare She Is Tosho. In the Group 1 Sprinters Stakes at Nakayama Racecourse, Takeover Target won by about three lengths, defeating a field which contained Meisho Bowler, Silent Witness, She Is Tosho, Les Arcs, and Benbaun. In Hong Kong, where he was to compete in the Group 1 Hong Kong International Sprint, he was withdrawn by stewards on the morning of the race for returning a positive reading to 17-alpha-hydroxyprogesterone hexanoate, a hormone. The horse was a short-priced favourite and, if he had won the race, his connections stood to collect a further US$1 million bonus in prize money for winning Group 1 races in the Global Sprint Challenge series in three of the four host countries. Instead the horse's owner and trainer, Joe Janiak, was fined 200,000 Hong Kong Dollars by stewards. On International Day in Hong Kong, Takeover Target was crowned Global Sprint Challenge Champion for 2006, finishing with 53 points, well clear of his closest competitor on 17 points. His return to racing in Australia in 2007 was delayed, first by an injury sustained in an exhibition gallop at a Queanbeyan race meeting in early March, then by a virus which forced him to miss the Group 1 T J Smith Stakes at Randwick Racecourse in early April. He resumed the following week in the Group 1 All Aged Stakes at Randwick over