Ballymacoll pair set for Ascot clash

Ballymacoll Stud are prepared to let Conduit and Tartan Bearer do battle against each other in the King George And Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on Saturday week.

Both four-year-olds are trained by Michael Stoute and were last see in action over 10 furlongs, with Conduit finishing third in the Eclipse while Tartan Bearer was second in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.

A return to a mile and a half is expected to see the pair in a better light and while Peter Reynolds, the stud’s racing manager, admits it is not ideal for them to be taking each other on, it is too good an opportunity to miss.

“At the moment it looks like the two of them will run, it is not cast in stone but that is the way we are looking at it,” said Reynolds.

“In one way it’s a great position to be in, but in another we’d like to win the top races without taking on our own horses.

“We don’t compare with the battalions of Godolphin or especially Aidan O’Brien, we just have two very good horses and it would be a shame to see either of them beaten but it looks the likely course.

“Conduit would obviously have been better suited by another quarter of a mile in the Eclipse, he ran a super race, especially as he was pushed wide and ran further than everything else. I saw him yesterday and he looks great.

“Tartan Bearer ran a brilliant race at Ascot. You can have no complaints when your horses run like that, he just got beat by a very good horse (Vision D’Etat) who had already won a Group One.

“I just hope there is a Group One in him before the year is over."

One horse who will not be in the line-up is the luckless Youmzain.

Mick Channon’s stable star has suffered a minor setback just days after it was revealed he was to run with the aid of a visor for the first time.

Placed in the last two renewals, he was narrowly denied a first Group One victory in Britain when beaten a nose in the Coronation Cup in June.

“The horse isn’t lame but there’s swelling round the joint and we can’t take any chances,” said Channon.

“X-rays taken on the leg showed nothing for us to get worried about and he’ll hopefully be back later in the year,” the trainer told www.mickchannon.tv.