Aidan O’Brien on Monday left Camelot in Saturday’s Group 1 Coral-Eclipse,
having warned this past weekend that retirement could be on the cards for the
triple classic hero.
Keeping last year’s Two Thousand Guineas and English and Irish Derby winner
in the 10-furlong Sandown feature alongside the June 18 Queen Anne winner
Declaration of War and smart three-year-old Mars, the Ballydoyle conditioner
continues to monitor Camelot’s progress following his latest fourth in the June
19 Prince of Wales’s Stakes.
Despite the prospect of a small field, there is no shortage of quality with
the first, second and third in that Royal Ascot contest — Al Kazeem, Mukhadram
and The Fugue — set to re-oppose.
From Germany is Stall Antanando’s April 28 Prix Ganay winner Pastorius and
the track’s Director of Racing Andrew Cooper is relishing the prospect of an
intriguing race.
“It’s going to be interesting to see what Aidan runs and we’ll have to wait
and see, although there seems to be a bit of momentum gathering behind his
three-year-old (Mars),” Cooper told PA Sport Monday.
“Talking to connections of Pastorius, I think they are very keen to come
across from Germany and give it a shot, so hopefully we’ll get at least six or
seven runners on the day.”
Cooper gave the going as good, good-to-firm in places with an ideal weather
forecast in the lead-up set to make his life easier.
“The fact is that since we last raced on June 15, there has been hardly any
rain at all and we have been watering on and off since then,” Cooper said.
“There is the possibility of 1-2 mm of rain tomorrow (Tuesday), but after that
there’s nothing showing up at all in most forecasts — no sign of any storms.
“Not only that, but it is due to get quite warm by the end of the week too,
so we don’t have much option but to apply some irrigation, but we’ll review the
system on a day-to-day basis.
“The instruction is to try and produce going no quicker than good to firm and
that will be the aim — but if it’s good-to-firm on the day that’s no problem,
nor should it be at this stage of the year. It will just be proper summer
ground.”