Since ground conditions have started to dry up there has been no more in-form trainer in Ireland than Ger Lyons, and he can emphasise the point at Naas on Sunday.
Only Aidan O’Brien and Dermot Weld top Lyons’s 15 winners this season – a near 20 per cent strike rate that could be improved upon significantly at a particularly opportune time.
Qatar Racing’s Sheikh Fahad Al Thani is a major owner for Lyons and he will ride in the concluding Charity Race in aid of Irish Injured Jockeys.
Better ground can see the Lyons-trained Restive carry the Qatar colours close in a mile handicap, but it is the sheikh’s number one Irish jockey Colin Keane on Wayside Flower rather than Spy Ring in the Listed Fillies Sprint that punters could pounce on.
Wayside Flower renews rivalry with Cuff who beat her over the course and distance earlier this month. However the Lyons filly blew the start that day and was only just denied by the Ballydoyle winner.
Four cross-channel trained runners should provide some useful form links ahead of Royal Ascot’s juvenile highlights, but forecast improving ground conditions over the weekend should help Wayside Flower.
Lyons’s juveniles have repeatedly caught the eye in recent weeks, particularly Psychedelic Funk, who bids to make it three from three in the Coolmore Rochestown Stakes.
Ground appears immaterial to the course and distance winner, who is already a 7-1 shot for Royal Ascot’s Coventry Stakes. The presence of Hakeem, runner-up to the top cross-channel two-year-old Global Applause, before winning at Nottingham, makes this a fascinating heat in Ascot terms.
Ryan Moore has four rides, the best of which looks to be Washington DC in the Group Three Bar One Lacken Stakes. Already 12-1 for the Commonwealth Cup, last year’s Windsor Castle winner bounced back to winning form in good style last time at Navan.
The Owenstown Stud Stakes is an all-home affair which includes Godolphin’s Anamba, one of five rides on the card for William Buick.
Dermot Weld’s three-year- old Embiran could be progressive enough to bridge the ratings gap to the 108-marked five-year-old, Yuften.
