RACING:THE GROUP One-winning sprinter Sole Power could return to action in Newmarket's Palace House Stakes in a month's time after a disappointing effort at Meydan over the weekend. Last season's shock 100 to 1 Nunthorpe winner beat only two home in the Al Quoz Sprint won by JJ The Jet Plane last Saturday.
“Wayne (Lordan) just felt he was very fresh and free. He’d been off a long time and in hindsight maybe we should have had him out there for the entire carnival like the way the first six in the race were,” trainer Eddie Lynam said yesterday. “But the dream will be to come back and compete in the big five furlong races. We’ll look next at either the Palace House on April 30th or the Temple Stakes at Haydock on May 21st.”
Best of the Irish in the Al Quoz Sprint was Michael Halford’s consistent six-year-old Invincible Ash, who was beaten just half a length into fourth by JJ The Jet Plane in a blanket finish to the five-furlong turf event. “She will be back home on Wednesday and we’ll give her a break. There are no definite plans but I would imagine we might try and go to Royal Ascot with her,” Halford said yesterday.
Aidan O’Brien is considering a trip to Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May for a Kentucky Derby tilt with Master Of Hounds but the news hasn’t reverberated through the betting for America’s most famous classic. The Ballydoyle colt, beaten a nose by the filly Khawlah in Saturday’s UAE Derby, was trading at over 20 to 1 odds on betting exchanges for the Kentucky Derby yesterday after O’Brien’s confirmation he will choose between that race and Newmarket’s 2,000 Guineas for Master Of Hounds’ next start.
“The Kentucky Derby is a great race. He handled the surface well in Dubai and he’s a horse that has tactical speed and we were delighted with his run,” O’Brien said. “I’m sure the race will be considered.”
No European-trained horse has won the Kentucky Derby. The Clive Brittain-trained Bold Arrangement came close quarter of a century ago when runner up to Ferdinand. However, Dermot Weld famously sent Go And Go to win the last leg of the American Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, in 1990.
