Nayef none the worse after Diamond disappointment

Plans for Nayef are up in the air after his seventh place finish in the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot on Saturday.

The Marcus Tregoning-trained five-year-old finished 11 lengths adrift of the winner Alamshar in the mile and a half race on ground that was good, good to soft in places after some heavy rain.

Tregoning said this morning: “He’s come out of the race absolutely fine.

“You could see on the way to the start that he wasn’t going to like the sticky ground.

“He’s got too good an action and although we’ve got away with it before, it was soft when he won the Cumberland Lodge at Ascot and heavy when he won as a two-year-old at the same track so he went through it.”

Nayef has already won the Group One Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot this season and he was second in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown last time, a race which Tregoning believes may have taken it’s toll.

“It was a disappointing run but it’s nice to know there was a good reason,” he said.

“He had a hard race in the Eclipse and possibly the combination of factors just went against him.

“The most important thing is that we have got him back in great shape.”

Tregoning will now bide his time before deciding where to send the Gulch horse next, although he does hold an entry in the Juddmonte International Stakes, a race he won last year, at York next month.

The Kingswood House handler added: “I think we will have to see how he goes from here. I wouldn’t completely rule out York but there is the Champion Stakes and other races for him later in the year.

“He’s already won a big race this season so we’re in no rush with him.”