O’Brien big guns could clash in Champion
The pair have won the last two renewals of the Irish Derby but O’Brien would not be averse to seeing them take each other on.
Fame And Glory has already won the Tattersalls Gold Cup and the Coronation Cup this season and returned from a mid-season break with a comfortable win at Group Two level. His main aim this season is the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
“The plan is to take it one race at a time. He’s had a break in the summer and has come out of it very well,” said O’Brien.
“His next race will either be the Irish Champion or the Arc Trial at Longchamp. At the moment we’re looking at the Irish Champion.
“We’d have more time to prepare him for the Arc if he runs in the Irish Champion.
“We had a few pacemakers in the Arc last year and I think they got a little bit disengaged from the field. The race didn’t work out well for him (he finished sixth).
“Our experience of those real good mile and a half horses is they have plenty of class for 10 furlongs.”
Cape Blanco was last seen finishing a distant second in the King George behind Harbinger.
“We were delighted with his run in the King George. It was a tough race. He went stride for stride with Workforce behind the pacemaker but Oliver (Peslier) gave the winner a beautiful ride, he let the others do all the work,” O’Brien told At The Races.
“We were watching Workforce and he was watching us and I think that set it up for Harbinger, but that is taking nothing away from the winner, it was a brilliant performance.
“It is possible that it will be the Irish Champion for him as well, that’s what we are looking at but it hasn’t been decided.
“Fame And Glory has a year on him and has had a mid-summer break while Cape Blanco has been very busy and is only three.
“I suppose it won’t be an easy decision for Johnny (Murtagh).”
Meanwhile last year’s champion juvenile St Nicholas Abbey is edging closer to his eagerly-anticipated comeback.
Aidan O’Brien’s son of Montjeu originally looked to have disappointed by finishing only sixth in the 2000 Guineas but subsequent events suggest he faced a fairly stiff task.
The winner, Makfi, landed the Prix Jacques le Marois on Sunday, runner-up Dick Turpin has won the Prix Jean Prat and third home Canford Cliffs has won the Irish Guineas, St James’s Palace and Sussex Stakes.
“He’s been cantering for a couple of weeks now, he’s started back and is working well,” O’Brien told At The Races.
“We haven’t picked a race for him yet, but he is back in work now and in the next week or two we’ll be looking for a race for him and see where we are going to start him back.
“He was always a horse who was very natural and didn’t take a lot of work, so in around about a month or six weeks he might be running.
“Until his work steps up to top gear we won’t know, but he is a horse that never took a lot of work.”
