WES TIPS IRON LADY TO BASH BATTAASH

LADY AURELIA has only to match her winning run from Royal Ascot’s King’s Stand Stakes to sink market rival Battaash in the Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes at York on Friday.

That is the view of her “very, very confident” trainer Wesley Ward.

The American filly’s Group 1 clash with Charlie Hills’ goingplaces speedball Battaash is the must-see race of next week’s Ebor Festival. Lady Aurelia, the 2016 Queen Mary Stakes heroine who blitzed to a three-length victory margin in the King’s Stand Stakes at the royal meeting in June, is as short as 11-8 favourite to become the first Us-trained Nunthorpe winner.

And Californiabased Ward (left), said: “I’m very, very confident. I don’t know if she even needs to improve. She would be the fastest I’ve ever trained.

“When the jockey says, ‘Go!’ — that’s when she uses that punch.”

MASSAAT (12-1), ridden for trainer Owen Burrows by Jim Crowley, defied an absence of 373 days to land the Hungerford Stakes at Newbury.