Elliptic comes to the fore in Tipperary

ELLIPTIC emerged as a Royal Ascot candidate with an impressive victory at Tipperary on Tuesday evening.

The Donnacha O’Brien trained filly showed a smart turn of foot in picking up her rivals from two furlongs out, running on strongly to account for Quick Suzy by a length and a half in the Yeomanstown Stud “El Kabeir” Irish EBF Fillies Maiden.

Sent off the 3-1 favourite, the Gavin Ryan-ridden winner is a daughter of Caravaggio.

O’Brien said: “A lot of mine are taking a run and she is a nice filly. She looks to be exciting, has plenty of pace and Caravaggios look very fast.

“She was working very well, working like a really nice fast filly. She was very green for the first few furlongs and I thought she wasn’t going to do anything today, but once she got a bit of light she really took off.

“We will step her up in class now, she’ll have no problem getting six [furlongs], although she was green today more than flat out. She’ll look quicker the next day with a bit of experience.

“You’d have to look at Royal Ascot. We’ll have a look at the calendar and see if we give her another run before it, but you’d be thinking she could be a Queen Mary or Albany filly.”

Elsewhere, Clan Des Obeaux will run in the Punchestown Gold Cup next week rather than this weekend’s bet365 Gold Cup at Sandown.

The dual King George VI Chase winner, who was third in the latest renewal of the Kempton showpiece, returned to winning ways with a smooth victory at Aintree.

His 26-length triumph in the Betway Bowl was one of three winners on the opening day of the Grand National meeting for his co-owner Sir Alex Ferguson.