The Ballydoyle two-year-olds go from strength to strength and David Ord is looking forward to the return of a colt we haven't seen since Royal Ascot.
Aidan O'Brien might be uncharacteristically light in the three-year-old department, but the message from Ballydoyle is increasingly clear – the kids are alright.
Just look at the results over the last few weeks. Blackbeard won the Prix Morny, Meditate stayed unbeaten with her smooth win in the Debutante Stakes and Little Big Bear landed the Phoenix Stakes in the manner of a colt destined to challenge for champion two-year-old honors.
And all three formed part of O’Brien’s team for Royal Ascot.
The latter was his first winner of the week in the Windsor Castle Stakes, while Meditate laid down her own marker in the Albany Stakes.
Blackbeard was first out the blocks in the Coventry Stakes and could only finish fourth, two lengths and a neck adrift of runner-up Persian Force. On Sunday at Deauville he was a ready half-length in front of him.
Age Of Kings was seventh in the same race at Ascot – running to a level of form he has matched rather than improved on since.
The Antarctic was also seventh, this time behind The Ridler in the Norfolk Stakes. He’s gone on to win a Group Three at Deauville and chase home Blackbeard in the Prix Robert Papin before finishing third in the Morny at the weekend.
Clearly the Ballydoyle lorries for Ascot were loaded with the cream of the early juvenile crop – and the one horse we haven’t seen since was supposed to be the best of the lot. Alfred Munnings.
Nothing about his breeding suggested he would be an early two-year-old type. After all, he’s a Dubawi half-brother to Snowfall out of a dam who won the Give Thanks Stakes over a mile-and-six and is herself a full sister to an Arc winner in Found.
Pedigrees don’t come any deeper so when he hit the racecourse in May a few eyebrows were raised. They were still upright after his Leopardstown debut too, the colt quickening clear in the manner of a top-class prospect to beat Segomo by four and a half lengths.
The fourth home Voce Del Palio now has a Timeform rating of 102+ after landing a valuable sales race at Naas but is the only positive strand from that form to date.
Here we had the Ballydoyle banker of the week at Ascot and he was backed accordingly for the Chesham Stakes, being sent off the 11/8 favourite. But he didn’t fire, ridden two out and fading inside the final furlong to finish sixth behind Holloway Boy.
Unlike the rest of the Royal Ascot team he hasn't been spotted in public since, but he’s a name still mentioned in dispatches and entries in the National Stakes and Darley Dewhurst Stakes suggest he might be back for an autumn run or two.
It is true there is a degree of entries by numbers when it comes to the big autumn pots for the Ballydoyle team.
For instance, Aidan has 19 in the Dewhurst. They range from Little Big Bear, at 126p on Timeform ratings by some way his best two-year-old, to unraced prospects.
Blackbeard’s in there and so too is Aesop’s Fables (111p), who was two and a quarter lengths too good for stablemate Hans Andersen in the Futurity Stakes at the Curragh last weekend.
Auguste Rodin is a Deep Impact colt out of Rhododendron who looked like living up to the pedigree when winning at Naas in July.
Denmark overcame greenness to come clear of his rivals on debut at the same track, putting him in the could be anything category, along with the unraced trio of and Alexandroupolis, Paddington and Subzero.
The former is a 240,000-guineas son of Camelot, from the family of Kew Gardens, and Paddington is a €420,000 Siyouni half-brother to a useful French two-year-old in Masterpiece.
The one homebred is Subzero, who is by Galileo out of Cheveley Park runner-up Different League. Perhaps breeding speed to the greatest stallion of modern times might work the oracle one final time.
All three need to be in your trackers but so does Alfred Munnings, the forgotten horse of Ballydoyle.
But look at the breeding, look back to the debut win and the stable confidence he carried over with him to Royal Ascot. During a period of absence his name has slipped down this particular Ballydoyle leaderboard, but there’s time yet for it to be back up in lights this autumn.
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