Aidan O’Brien reports The Lion In Winter to be on course for Thursday’s Al Basti Equiworld Dante Stakes at York.
13 colts went forward at the six-day declaration stage including Alpine Trail who won the Newmarket Stakes last week and has been supplemented at a cost of £14,000 by Godolphin.
But all eyes will be on the Ballydoyle representative who will be racing for the first time since winning the Tattersalls Acomb Stakes at the same track in August. On that day he beat Wimbledon Hawkeye and subsequent Betfred 2000 Guineas winner Ruling Court.
However, speaking on Friday’s Nick Luck Daily Podcast, the trainer made it clear that the colt will improve significantly for his first outing of the season.
“Everything is OK for him for York. Obviously, it’s his first run of the year and we’ll see how that goes. We’re happy at the moment that he’s going to be ready to start but there will be a lot of improvement we think after York, so I suppose we wait and see what happens," he said.
“York is a flat track; the ground is usually beautiful there and we were trying to give him all the chances we could. There is a little longer between York and the Derby this year and that’s going to be a little help too, I think.
“The bottom line is we were just trying to give him the longest time we could and felt we’d barely get a run into him before the Derby, if he ran well enough to go and run in the Derby."
It’s been a good week for O’Brien in the Chester Classic trails.
“We were happy with them all. Obviously, you’d be happy with Minnie Hauk, she was just ready to start, she’d had a little hold up and we were just trying to get her out, and we felt she learnt plenty.
“You’d have to say if she improved, she could be a filly well worth running in the Oaks.
“Lambourn got the trip well, we thought that he would, we thought he could be a proper mile-and-a-half horse and could get further. He’s in the mix at the moment and looks like a horse who should run his style of race in a Derby if we do run.
“Mount Kilimanjaro we thought a mile-and-a-quarter would suit him well. Ryan said he was back a bit further than he wanted to be, but he was happy with the way he quickened.
"He definitely has to be in the mix for any of the Derbys, French or English.”
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