Having provided his breeder Jim Bolger with an Irish Derby last term, Trading
Leather owes Coolcullen very little as he returns
in the Group 2, £100,000 Jockey Club Stakes at Newmarket on the Two Thousand
Guineas Saturday program.
Now racing in the Royal
Blue of Godolphin, the fast-ground specialist may have more to come as he is prepared for the
midsummer championship races. Second in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes
at Ascot in July and Juddmonte International at York the following month,
Trading Leather signed off
with a third on unsuitably rain-softened turf in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown
in September.
“Trading Leather is very well and I have been very happy with him,” Jim Bolger
said. “We have had a clear run all through the winter with him and hopefully he will be going
for all the good middle-distance races this year.”
The son of Teofilo is joined by fellow Godolphin
representative Penglai Pavilion, who comes here on the back of a disappointing
seventh in the Dubai City of Gold over Saturday’s 12-furlong trip at Meydan on March 8. Fifth in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in October, having been a head second in the Grand Prix de Deauville in August, he remains an intriguing prospect for the Charlie Appleby stable.
“We
were a little disappointed with Penglai Pavilion in Dubai, but I don’t think that the track
suited him as he is a real galloper,” his conditioner remarked. “He will improve on whatever he
does on Saturday, but we are looking forward to getting the ball rolling. I think that
he could potentially progress into a nice stayer. The plan is to step him up in distance after this
race and look at some of the Cup races.”
The least-exposed in the line-up is Khalid
Abdullah’s Brass Ring and while he has much improvement to make off a win in an
April 5 Lingfield handicap, that form has been boosted and since and he had beaten the
re-opposing listed Godolphin Stakes winner Renew comprehensively in a
course-and-distance contest last May.
“He’s a progressive horse who is stepping up to Group class for the
first time,” the owner’s Racing Manager Teddy Grimthorpe said. “John (Gosden) is very
pleased with him and we’re looking forward to running, but this will be a new task for him at
this level.”
Newmarket’s Two Thousand Guineas undercard is boosted by a
strong renewal of the £65,000 Palace House (Eng-G3), which sees the old guard of
established Group 1 winners Kingsgate Native and Sole Power taken on by the young pretenders. They include a pair of Qatar Bloodstock
representatives who have the world of sprinting at their feet in Pearl Secret
and Hot Streak.
The former has been restricted to just seven starts
so far, but showed with a win in the listed Scurry Stakes at Sandown in June 2012 and a third
behind Sole Power in last year’s King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot that he possesses abundant
ability.
Hot Streak could hardly have been more impressive than when winning Ascot’s Cornwallis Stakes over five furlongs on rain-softened ground in October, just a week before running
second in the Middle Park Stakes over six at this track.
“Pearl Secret is in fantastic form — David (Barron) tells me he has never
been better,” the owners’ Racing Manager David Redvers told PA Sport. “Physically, he is in a much better place than he was last year. He has matured a
lot and looks absolutely magnificent. The ground shouldn’t be a problem for him. He
is by Compton Place, and sometimes that line like to get their toe in, but this
horse has a fast-ground action. This looks a nice stepping-stone on the road to Royal Ascot and we’re
looking forward to running him.
“Hot Streak is only a three-year-old, but he has been
working to an exceptional level this spring and Kevin is in no doubt that he has trained on from two to
three. In an ideal world, we’d like to see a bit of rain as Kevin has always been of the
mindset he would like his first run of the year to be on good ground. If it ended up being rattling
fast, we’d probably take him out and find him another race somewhere. As is the case with Pearl
Secret, it’s all about giving him a run somewhere as part of the plan to get him to the Royal
meeting.”
Another on the way up is Moviesta, who burst to prominence when annexing
the King George Stakes over Saturday’s five-furlong trip at Glorious Goodwood in
August before flopping in York’s Nunthorpe Stakes later that month.
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