O’Brien set to go all out in pursuit of British trainers’ title
Aidan O’Brien holds a strong hand in Saturday’s William Hill Futurity Trophy at Doncaster, the final Group One of the Flat season, with 11 of the 17 remaining entries trained at Ballydoyle.
At the latest confirmation stage for the two-year-old contest — the last major prize of the turf season with £275,000 (€326,391) on offer — O’Brien looks like going all out in his pursuit of another trainers’ championship.
O’Brien’s only rival in the battle for the title, Andrew Balding, who currently trails the Irishman by over £80,000 (€94,950), has just one in the race in impressive Salisbury winner Gran Dia.
The master of Ballydoyle will pick his team from Albany County, Capability Brown, Choctaw Nation, Drumbeat, Giant Sequoia, Haffner, Man’s Best Friend, the ante-post favourite Noble Exhibit, Sergei Diaghilev, Shakespeare and Wall Street.
First Law and Al Hudaiba (Charlie Appleby) could fly the royal blue flag for Godolphin while Karl Burke has left in Burning Up but one smaller yard hoping some of the bigger guns do not show up at the end of a long season is William Muir, who intends to run Breacher.
Muir believes the Cracksman colt will relish the step up to a mile and insisted his two-year-old deserves the step up class after finishing third to Desert Castle in the Group Two Champagne Stakes at the Yorkshire track last time out.
“He’s fantastic, he’s in great shape and he is going run at Doncaster in the Futurity Trophy,” said Muir, who trains the colt with Chris Grassick. “He’s done nothing wrong and he has been crying out for a mile. From even before we started he has been crying out for the mile.
“I made a statement that the winner of the Champagne (Desert Castle) was as nice a horse as I’ve seen for years. So to go and run as well as he did at Newmarket the winner (Darkness Falls) must be exceptional.
“The second horse (Sergei Diaghilev) went and finished second only just beaten in the Autumn Stakes. We wanted a step up in trip. If we’d had a mile we’d have been closer.
“We wouldn’t have beaten the winner, I think the winner’s exceptional, but I think we’d have been closer to the second horse if it had been a mile.”
