Aidan O'Brien's juvenile team failed to hit the Group One bullseye at Chantilly on Sunday but Ballydoyle's classic favourite for 2017, Churchill, is on course to try to secure two-year-old championship honours in Saturday's Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket.
The colt impressively graduated to Group One level in last month’s National Stakes at the Curragh, a performance which propelled Churchill to the top of the betting for next year’s 2,000 Guineas and Epsom Derby.
“The plan is to bring him over. That’s what we’re looking at, at the moment,” confirmed O’Brien, who secured Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe history with a 1-2-3 in Sunday’s renewal of Europe’s most prized all-aged contest.
Earlier though on that Chantilly card, Whitecliffsofdover failed to justify favouritism in the Prix Jean Luc Lagardere, finishing third behind the star French colt, National Defense, while Promise To Be True found Godolphin’s Wuheida too good in the Prix Marcel Boussac.
“She’s still a bit of a baby but she’s run very well,” said O’Brien of Promise To Be True. “My first reaction is not to take her to the Breeders Cup and to leave her for next year.”
World record
O’Brien’s sprinter Washington DC made the frame in the Prix de l’Abbaye won by the English runner Marsha but with Alice Springs landing Saturday’s Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket, the trainer’s Group One tally for the year is now as 18, seven shy of Bobby Frankel’s world record for a season.
Jim Bolger’s 2016 classic heroine Pleascach made a valiant attempt to win on her first start in 386 days when only just denied Prix de l’Opera glory by the English filly, Speedy Boarding.
The pair fought out a memorable finish ahead of the odds-on favourite So Mi Dar but it was Speedy Boarding, a Group One winner too earlier this season at Deauville, who secured what is likely to prove a glorious career swansong.
“She’ll probably go to stud now,” confirmed trainer James Fanshawe. “It was a brilliant race and there didn’t deserve to be a loser. She’s so tough. She raised her game again after the Romanet and really battled.”
Bolger reported: “She’s run very well and she might not be finished for the season. Let’s see what Sheikh Mohammed wants to do.”
Five chances
Pat Smullen is sure to have been left deflated by Harzand’s disappointing Arc effort at Chantilly but the champion jockey is aiming for a lift at Limerick’s Monday programme where he will have five chances to secure the one success that will take him on to a century of winners in Ireland this season.
Smullen will hope a first-time visor will help Monocle's chance in the concluding maiden while Creme de La is another Dermot Weld runner with a maiden chance although that one could have to go some to cope with Duchess of France. The bet of the meeting though could be Perfect Storm who ran into a potentially smart sort in Doctor Geoff at Naas last time.
