TREASURE HUNT
Donnacha to help colt discover his Lost form
AIDAN O’BRIEN will run 13 on Qipco-sponsored Champions Day in Ascot tomorrow, including six in the Fillies & Mares.
Other Irish trainers represented are Willie Mullins (Thomas Hobson), Joseph O’brien (Speak In Colours), Fozzy Stack (Son Of Rest), Ken Condon (Romanised), and Jim Bolger (Verbal Dexterity) BLINKERED for the first time, the talented but quirky Lost Treasure might put his head in front at the right time in the Al Basti Equiworld Mercury Stakes, listed feature of tonight’s action in Dundalk.
The Mercury has gone to export for the last four years. And there are four British-trained contenders tonight in a field of nine, which will include four two-year-olds.
A dual-winner at the
Curragh this summer,
Lost Treasure has been far from convincing in two of his last three starts, when almost giving away a six-furlong conditions event at Dundalk late last month and, last Saturday, when coming through to lead close home before leaning left and being pipped by Medicine Jack in the listed Waterford Testimonial Stakes. In between, he produced a career best effort finishing an unlucky fifth, beaten less than a length, behind Mabs Cross in the Abbaye (Group 1) at Longchamp.
He came from the back of the field and was finishing with a flourish when running out of room in the last 50 yards. He went up 22lb in the ratings for that effort.
Blinkers might help Donnacha O’brien’s, inset, task in the 8.00 tonight.
And Lost Treasure gets a hesitant vote to land the spoils at the expense of Abbaye also ran Hit The Bid, Robert Cowell’s Encore D’OR, the selection’s twoyear-old stable-companion All The King’s Men and Hollie Doyle’s mount Shumookh.
Earlier, Katiymann, for which things didn’t fall right when beaten a half-length by Aussie Valentine over a mile last week, is napped to make amends in the seven-furlong
Book Your Christmas Party Dundalk Handicap. He needs to come off a strong pace and is expected to pounce late under
Ben Coen.