Eddie Lynam
is taking triple Group
One aim at next week’s Royal Ascot extravaganza but the star filly Agnes Stewart will not be part of the trainer’s festival team.
It had been hoped last year’s May Hill winner might make the Coronation Stakes but Lynam, who is targeting an unprecedented Kings Stand Stakes hat-trick with his stalwart sprinter Sole Power, has run out of time with Agnes Stewart, who could instead reappear at the Curragh next month.
“She is back in full fast work and is sound, but she’s not quite there yet. It’s hard enough going to Ascot when you’re fully right, never mind half-right, so we’ve basically run out of time with her.
Up in the air
“Plans are up in the air. She might make it back in time for the Irish Oaks weekend. She’s in everything although it might turn out her best trip is a mile and a quarter. Something like the Kilboy Stakes might be a race for her, but we’ll see,” the Meath trainer said.
The trainer enjoyed a vintage 2014 Royal Ascot with Sole Power’s second Kings Stand victory added to later in the week by Slade Power in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes and Anthem Alexander in the Queen Mary Stakes.
The latter returned to action last week with an impressive Group Three success at Naas and is among the favourites for the newly installed sprint, the Commonwealth Cup, while Lynam’s new recruit Moviesta is another contender for the established Group One sprints.
“He[Moviesta] worked well after racing at the Curragh on Sunday and he has a choice of options at Ascot,” Lynam said.
Moviesta holds entries in both the Kings Stand and the Diamond Jubilee, entries that Ireland’s reigning Horse of the Year, Sole Power, will also have, although the five-furlong Kings Stand is his clear priority.
“I’ve always thought he could operate at six furlongs as well as five, but he has consistently proven me wrong, with the possible exception of Hong Kong one year. He will get the double entry but it is very unlikely he’d run in both. He’ll be left in the Diamond Jubilee in case something stupid happens earlier in the week, but he’s in good old form,” Lynam added.
The Diamond Jubilee is also a likely target for the impressive Greenlands Stakes winner Mustajeeb, who could make up part of Dermot Weld’s small but select Ascot team.
Making a call
The season’s leading trainer will work Free Eagle this week before making a call on whether or not the Moyglare-owned colt can take up a Prince Of Wales’s Stakes entry, while another Moyglare star, Forgotten Rules, tops the Gold Cup betting.
However, Weld is hoping for some rain before the marathon highlight. “Forgotten Rules is on course for the Gold Cup, but is very ground-dependent,” he said. One Weld star facing a prolonged spell on the sidelines is the unbeaten Zawraq, who was forced to miss the Derby due to lameness and has been diagnosed with a fracture to his off-fore canon-bone.
