Stick with Stunning View

TAKE a chance on Stunning View to kick-start Dermot Weld’s season by landing tomorrow’s Leopardstown 2,000 Guineas Trial.

Weld, who has won this trial with Refuse To Bend, Grey Swallow and Famous Name in recent seasons, rated this colt highly last season and, better than his seventh to Shakespearean in the Goffs Million Mile, he looks a colt hat has yet to fulfil his potential.

Convincing winner of his maiden at the Galway Festival, a race Weld has farmed for many years, Stunning View impressed on his debut at the Curragh, when separating Kingsfort (subsequently bought by Godolphin) and Viscount Nelson in a hot Curragh maiden.

This trial looks ultra-competitive and, on ratings, Stunning View needs to improve significantly to cope with Jim Bolger’s Group 3 winner Free Judgement and the Ballydoyle pair Viscount Nelson and Black Quartz, the mount of Johnny Murtagh.

But, proven in soft ground and likely to be fit for his seasonal bow, Stunning View might be capable of proving himself a stakes colt, with the potential to take his chance at a much higher level.

The fillies race, the Leopardstown 1,000 Guineas Trial, affords the Aidan O’Brien-trained course and distance winner Famous a good opportunity to prove her classic credentials.

Winner of her maiden at Leopardstown in July, Famous produced her best effort when runner-up to Termagent in the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes at the Curragh, before finishing a close fourth to Shakespearean in the Goffs Million Mile.

In the other Leopardstown action Behtarini, second to subsequent Group 1 winner Jan Vermeer at Gowran Park, sets the standard in the Foxrock Maiden while Dermot Weld’s New Phase, fit from a hurdling campaign, stands out in the Paddocks Handicap.