The Dermot Weld-trained Pine Dance will have a midnight trial in New York on Friday night for a Breeders' Cup series that could have as many as six Irish runners on Saturday week.
Pine Dance, already a double US winner this season, will run in the Grade Two Pegasus Stakes under the lights at Meadowlands for a pot worth $250,000.
Weld said yesterday: "Pine Dance is entered for the Breeders' Cup Classic and should he win the Pegasus we would hope to get into the Classic. He is unquestionably a better horse on dirt but we will take it one day at a time and worry about Churchill Downs after Friday."
The American jockey Michael McCarthy will again ride Pine Dance after their successful partnership on the dirt at Philadelphia last time. Pine Dance also won the American Derby at Arlington, Chicago, earlier this year and is scheduled to run close to midnight on Friday night.
Pine Dance is as low as 12 to 1 with Paddy Power for the Classic, for which Giant's Causeway is a general second favourite behind the Kentucky Derby winner, Fusiachi Pegasus.
Giant's Causeway's trainer Aidan O'Brien sprang a surprise yesterday, however, when nominating La Vida Loca as an intended runner for the Juvenile Fillies race, although there may be a doubt about the Prix Marcel Boussac fourth having a sufficiently high rating to earn a place in the field.
"She will remain in the USA afterwards," O'Brien said. "Giant's Causeway is in very good form at the moment and we would also hope to run Bernstein in the Mile and Turnberry Isle in the Juvenile."
Turnberry Isle, the Beresford Stakes winner, is a 12 to 1 shot with Cashmans for his race behind the 5 to 2 favourite, Flame, Thrower, but Bernstein is as high as 20 to 1 for the Mile.
O'Brien plans to run three other horses at Churchill Downs over the Breeders' Cup weekend. The two-year-old filly Freshwater Pearl will compete in an allowance race on the Friday, while the Group-winning two-year-old Honours List will take his chance in a Grade Three contest on Breeders' Cup day itself. On Sunday, Shoal Creek will run in a Grade Three race on the dirt.
Ireland's other possible Breeders' Cup contender is the Joanna Morgan-trained One Won One, who is a contender for the Mile, although both he and Bernstein face a possible struggle on the ratings to secure a place in the race.
Meanwhile, One Won One tested positive to two prohibited substances after he won the listed Halliwell Landau John Of Gaunt Stakes at Haydock Park in June, it was revealed yesterday. The Horserace Forensic Laboratory reported that the analysis of the sample taken from the gelding has confirmed the presence of phenylbutazone and oxyphenbutazone. An inquiry will be held by the Jockey Club's disciplinary committee in due course.
