Balding chasing the Dream
Wednesday 3rd October, 2007
Dream Eater winning The Samsung £300000 St Ledger Stakes at Doncaster. Picture by Steve Cargill.
DREAM Eater faces the stiffest task of his career to date when he lines up in a 10-strong renewal of the Shadwell Middle Park Stakes on Friday.
The son of Night Shift has a progressive profile and ran out a worthy winner of an extremely valuable sales race at Doncaster on his last start. On that occasion he triumphed by a length-and-a-quarter from Achilles Of Troy, who re-opposes on the NatWest Rowley Mile.
Now Dream Eater is ready to step back into Pattern company - in the summer he was sixth to Winker Watson in the TNT July Stakes - where he will tackle proven Group winners Sir Gerry (Gimcrack), Strike The Deal (Richmond) and Dark Angel (Mill Reef).
His trainer Andrew Balding said: “The Middle Park is a massive step up in class and he has got a fair bit to find. Hopefully he can run a big race and we’d be delighted if he made the frame in a Group 1. It would be wonderful for the horse and for his owner Jeff Smith.
“I’ve not got any great pretensions of winning the race but at the same time it would be foolish to underestimate the horse. He is very decent and has improved with every run. ”
The other five runners in the race are All In The Red, Proud Linus, Red Alert Day, Rock Of Rochelle and Tajdeef.
Newmarket’s three day meeting begins tomorrow - Thursday, October 4 - at 2pm. The day’s feature races are the G4S Rous Stakes and the Grove Farm Stud Noel Murless Stakes, which trainer Henry Cecil will be trying to win for the second year in succession.
Novellara took the 1m 6f Listed contest last year and Cecil this time relies on Tranquil Tiger, already successful in the grade at Salisbury.
By Tony Rushmer