Orcadian ready for Ascot date

Orcadian will head to the Jersey Stakes at Royal Ascot on Wednesday week after his fine comeback run.

James Eustace’s charge had some very decent form to his name as a juvenile, not least a five-length second to 2000 Guineas hero Haafhd at Newbury in August.

Now gelded following a below-par effort at York in October, Orcadian made his seasonal return in the Heron Stakes over a mile at Kempton last month, where he finished third to Tahreeb and Leicester Square.

And Eustace hopes the current dry spell continues for the son of Kirkwall, who loves to hear his hooves rattle.

“I’m hoping the weather doesn’t break down at the end of the week, because I don’t know what he would do on soft ground, although his half-brother (Horris Hill winner Rapscallion) loved it,” the Newmarket trainer said today.

“Jason (Tate) certainly felt at Kempton it was a little loose on top and he said he would be better on faster.

“I was delighted with him and I hope he can go and behave himself, because that’s slightly the gamble, whether he will boil over with the big crowd and everything.

“But he was very cool at Kempton and he is a gelding now.

“He only really let us down once last year and that was at York, which can be a nightmare for horses. He’d also had some tough races and was possibly over the top.

“It was a combination of the two and he was in pieces by the time they ran. That was his only bad race.”

Orcadian will be dropping down a furlong in trip, but Eustace explained: “The reason we are keen to drop back to seven and make plenty of use of him is that in the Washington Singer we ended up making the running by default and afterwards we rather wished we’d gone a stride quicker.

“Jason said he could have done with no problem at all and if we had I think we might just have made more of a race of it with Haafhd. I not saying we would have beaten him but we might have made it a harder job.

“Gelding him seems to have worked and he has been very good all year. He has come out of Kempton very well and mentally quite happy, if anything happier than before the race.

“He won’t start favourite, but I think he’s got every right to run.”