Sandown Park, where the Derby winner Golden Horn is due to line up for the Coral-Eclipse Stakes on Saturday, felt the full force of the heatwave on Wednesday but remains good-to-firm with fresher weather forecast ahead of the big race.
“Everyone seems to be saying it was the hottest day since 2006,” Andrew Cooper, Sandown’s director of racing, said. “Groundwise, we are on the fast side of good. We’ve done bits and pieces of watering here today and we will water the bends tonight, which we always try to do two days before a race meeting.
“It has dried a bit but it’s not raced away from us. It all depends where your starting point is, we were pretty much good ground going into the day and now we’re on the fast side of good. If you were racing here now, you’d be delighted to race on it. There could be some rain in the morning and again on Friday night into Saturday, but it’s a risk and not guaranteed.”
Golden Horn is long odds-on for the Eclipse at 4-11 but Western Hymn, a stablemate of the favourite at John Gosden’s yard in Newmarket, has drifted to 14-1 after his trainer suggested the four-year-old, who has recorded three of his six career wins over the Eclipse course and distance, is not a certain starter.
Christophe Soumillon has been booked to ride Avenir Certain, the winner of the French 1,000 Guineas and French Oaks last season, in the Group One Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket next week, the feature race on the second day of the track’s July meeting.
Avenir Certain was unbeaten in six starts before the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in October, when he finished 11th of 20 starters behind Treve, and has failed to register another success in two outings back at the Falmouth trip of one mile this season. She showed signs of a return to form when second in a Group Three event at Chantilly last month, however.
“She is good and the plan is still to bring her to Newmarket and Christophe Soumillon will ride her,” Sylvain Vidal, racing manager to the filly’s owner Gerard Augustin-Normand, said. “Of course we are excited. It is a Group One race and we hope she can win her third Group One, which will be good for her stallion, Le Havre. I don’t think the going will matter to her. I don’t think it makes any difference.”
Rex Imperator, an impressive winner of the Stewards’ Cup in 2013, recorded his first success since landing Goodwood’s historic handicap in the Farmhouse Cheshire Handicap at Thirsk on Wednesday.
The six-year-old was trained by William Haggas until the start of the season, and is the latest horse to have been revived by a move to David O’Meara’s yard. David Nolan, his jockey, was forced to wait for running room but when a gap appeared, Rex Imperator quickened well to win by a neck.
Rex Imperator finished last in the 2014 Stewards’ Cup off a mark of 108 having taken the prize off 104 a year earlier. He is among 142 entries published on Wednesday for this year’s renewal on 1 August, which will be worth a total of £250,000, but may need to rise significantly from his latest winning mark of 83 to stand any chance of making the final field.
Barry Geraghty, who has not ridden in public since suffering a broken shinbone in March, hopes to make his debut as retained jockey to leading owner JP McManus this weekend despite spending Tuesday evening in hospital with a kidney stone.
Geraghty, who was appointed as Tony McCoy’s successor in the green and gold colours last month, was admitted to hospital after attending the wedding of his close friend and weighing room colleague Paul Carberry.
“I came into hospital yesterday morning as I was in a fair bit of pain and I found out I had a kidney stone,” Geraghty said on Wednesday. “I had it removed at 10pm last night, but I’m feeling a fair bit better today. I’m hoping I’ll be able to ride at the weekend, but I’m going to ride out in the morning and I’ll see how I feel then.”
