Virus stifles Jet progress

Ed McMahon has his fingers crossed Astrophysical Jet will take her chance in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The four-year-old filly has been tipped for major sprinting honours this season, but was found to have been suffering from a virus when a big failure as favourite for the Palace House Stakes at Newmarket in April.

“When she ran in the Palace House at Newmarket we found after the race she had a little bit of a virus so we had to take stock, which is why we didn’t run her in the Temple Stakes on Saturday,” said McMahon.

“We’ve got three weeks before the King’s Stand, and if everything is fine we’ll go there. She’s got to be firing on all cylinders before we decide to go.”

McMahon is also adopting a patient approach with last year’s Mill Reef Stakes scorer Temple Meads.

“He’s had one or two niggly things against him this year,” the Lichfield handler added. “We had him in the two sprint races at Royal Ascot, and wanted to go for the Duke of York but he wasn’t quite right for that.

“We’ll just keep progressing on through the year with him. At the start of the season we weren’t going to pencil him in for many races - I think his four-year-old career is what we are looking at.

“As a three-year-old you are up against it against older horses, for the first half of the year anyway.”