CLIVE COX believes his Royal Ascot hero My Dream Boat can deliver him another dream win in Saturday’s Coral-Eclipse at Sandown.
The former jump jockey has never made any secret of the regard in which he holds his progressive colt he won his biggest prize yet when landing the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Cox said: “We’ve won a Group One, we’re heading to Sandown as a Group One winner and there’s no better feeling, whether he gets due credit or not doesn’t bother me.
“We’re quite pleased there’s going to be plenty of pace in the race because it’s pretty obvious that suits us best with the way he finishes off his races.
“On the face of it everything is great, he’s fresh and well and we’re looking forward to it.”
The Eclipse traditionally provides three-year-olds with a first opportunity to take on their elders at Group One level in Britain and the main hope for the Classic generation this season is The Gurkha.
Aidan O’Brien said of his French Guineas winner: ” He came out of Ascot very well, he looks like a horse that could go up to a mile and a quarter and have no problem coming back to a mile again.
“Hopefully the deluge won’t come as we wouldn’t run him on heavy ground – hopefully that won’t happen. You’re never sure (how they’ll run against the older horses) but we’ve always liked him.”
Time Test gets the chance to prove himself the top-class performer he has long promised to be.
Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager to owner Khalid Abdullah,said: “I hope we’ll give him (The Gurkha) a race. It will be interesting to see how it works out.
“We were pretty pleased with Time Test’s comeback in every way, especially the way he travelled and the way he put it to bed.
“He’s got to put his mark on the game now. This is a nice opportunity, definitely.
“We’re pretty confident a mile and a quarter is around his optimum (distance).
“He’s pretty versatile. I don’t think he wants a flat-out gallop or a crawl, we just want a nice sensible pace.
“There are some really interesting horses in there and we should take them all and respect them.”
The Charlie Appleby-trained Hawkbill won his fifth consecutive race when landing the Tercentenary Stakes last month and connections have opted to supplement him in a bid for Group One glory.
“He has come out of Ascot very well. We just felt that while the conditions are like they are, he deserved to have a go,” said Appleby.
“I don’t think there will be a lack of pace but he showed when he won at Newmarket, where he pretty much made the running, that he can be ridden very forward.
“At Sandown you have got to be up near the pace as not many come from behind and he has got good tactical pace.
“He had a quiet week after Ascot and has since been doing routine work. He had a swing on Saturday and we were very pleased with that.
“It was after that we regrouped and talked to John Ferguson and Sheikh Mohammed and decided to take a look at the Eclipse.
“We felt he was good enough to run in the French Derby. He could have gone there and then headed straight to the Eclipse but we have just gone a different route.
“Most importantly he is giving us the right signs and seems to be improving with each run.”
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