APPLEBY ON A NEW TRAIL FOR ECLIPSE GLORY
NATIVE TRAIL will step up to a mile and a quarter for the CoralEclipse Stakes four weeks today after Charlie Appleby ruled out a Royal Ascot clash with stablemate Coroebus.
Having watched last season’s champion two-year-old, beaten three-quarter of a length by his stablecompanion in the QIPCO 2,000 Guineas over Newmarket’s Rowley Mile, go one better in the Irish equivalent at the Curragh two weeks ago, Appleby raised the prospect of a rematch in the St James’s Palace Stakes on Tuesday week.
But the Godolphin trainer reported yesterday: “Coroebus will go to the St James’s Palace and Native Trail will go to the Eclipse.
“You’ll see him hit his flat spot in his race and then he picks up and his strongest bit is through the line. Pedigree-wise, you can take some of the bones out of it and say that stepping up to 10 will suit as well.
“Also, the Eclipse is where we get the biggest weight pull from the older horses for the year, so that’s our thought process behind it.”
Native Trail is one the sponsor’s four 4-1 co-favourites – Appleby’s 2021 Derby hero Adayar, Sir Michael Stoute’s Bay Bridge and the John Gosdentrained Mishriff are also at the head of the betting – for the 10-furlong clash of the generations on July 2.
A cough ruled Adayar out of yesterday’s Coronation Cup at Ascot and the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot on June 15 and Appleby (above) added: “It’s either the Eclipse or the King George [VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on July 23].
“I want him 100 per cent, wherever he takes his aim.”