David Menuisier hopes Sunway can make his presence felt back on home shores in the Betfred Jockey Club Stakes at Newmarket.
After failing to register a victory at both three and four the Galiway gelding put a halt to that losing sequence in the Group Three Al Khail Trophy over a mile and three quarters at Meydan in January.
Although only just denied another win at the same level over course and distance the following month in the Nad Al Sheba Trophy the five-year-old then failed to beat a rival home upped back to two miles in the Group Two Dubai Gold Cup.
But with Menuisier still at a loss as to explain Sunway’s latest defeat, he will now give him the chance to atone for that reversal back over a mile and a half in the Group Two on May 1.
Menuisier said: “Sunway is grand. I don’t know what happened to him in Dubai the last day. It was so out of character.
“I will probably go to Newmarket for the Jockey Club Stakes as there are usually only four or five runners in it. He is as good over a mile and a half as he is two miles.
“I think we could look at going for the Jockey Club Stakes and possibly the Coronation Cup. He is a gelding now so there is no pressure on him.”
One thing that Menuisier believes was not the reason behind his latest defeat was the blinkers he was fitted with for the first time since finishing down the field in the Betfred Howard Wright Doncaster Cup in September.
He added: “Even in the morning in the blinkers he doesn’t pull or do anything like that. I literally don’t know what happened.
“It might sound stupid but whether he got stung by something I’m not sure. It was completely out of character for him to pull like a train how he did.
“He ran his best race last year in the Goodwood Cup with the blinkers on so it is not like the first time he has run in them. I put the blinkers back on as when he got beat out there the second time I thought he was floating a bit.
“The winner came wide, and he saw him at the last second and then he went back. I thought with the blinkers he would be more focused, but he was more focused on something, but I don’t know what it was.”
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