Newmarket Racecourses
the home of racing

• Contact us

GITANO Hernando missed his intended engagement in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes last month due to a splint problem but trainer Marco Botti is hopeful that his top-class colt will be at peak fitness in time for a possible tilt at the £350,000 Group 1 Emirates Airline Champion Stakes at Newmarket on Champions Day, Saturday, 16th October.

Successful in October in the Grade 1 Goodwood Stakes at Santa Anita, USA, Gitano Hernando is one of 66 outstanding entries for what promises to be another fantastic renewal of the historic 10-furlong contest.

Owned by Team Valor International and Gary Barber, the Hernando colt progressed throughout last season but his four-year-old campaign has been compromised by injury. His last start came in the Group 1 Dubai World Cup sponsored by Emirates Airline at Meydan in March when, in a race that was not run to suit his style, he finished a close sixth.

Botti revealed: “Gitano Hernando had a splint but he is back in full work now and we are looking forward to the autumn. The horse is doing well so we have given him an entry in the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes and we will see how he comes along. He looks well and he is an athletic horse so he always keeps himself quite fit at home. I am pleased with him.

“At the moment, nothing is set, there is plenty of time to decide between now and the middle of October, so we will see how he progresses before committing him to any target.

“He will probably have a prep race and that is something I will discuss with the owners closer to the time. It is not easy to get a horse fully fit for a race like the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes after a long lay-off without a prep, but it all depends on how he is in the next few weeks.

“I will leave plans in Team Valor’s and Gary’s (Barber) hands and we will sit down and decide where he goes. It has not quite been decided yet if the Breeders’ Cup is his long term target, we will just see at the moment how he progresses and then we will consider his options but the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes is a race we will look at.”

The fantastic entry also includes the sport’s latest sensation, Harbinger, who won the Group 1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on 24th July by a record 11 lengths.

Twice Over won the Group 1 Coral-Eclipse and Henry Cecil’s popular five-year-old could attempt to become the first back-to-back winner of the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes since Alborada (1998 & 1999), having won the race last year by half a length from the Marcus Tregoning-trained Mawatheeq.

There is a real depth of quality to this year’s Emirates Airline Champion Stakes entry with the Andre Fabre-trained Byword, successful in the Group 1 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, joined in the entries by 11 other hugely-talented French raiders including this season’s Group One 2000 Guineas hero Makfi from Mikel Delzangle’s stable.

Irish-trained horses have dominated the past four renewals of the £300,000 Group 1 Jumeirah Dewhurst Stakes and Co. Kildare handler Kevin Prendergast could aim to take the majority of the spoils back across the Irish Sea once more with his unbeaten Dunboyne Express, who features among 81 entries for the seven-furlong contest.

The Shamardal colt scored on his debut in a Leopardstown maiden in June and followed up with a comprehensive eight-length victory over Samuel Morse in the Group 3 Jebel Ali Stables & Racecourse Anglesey Stakes at the Curragh on 18th July.

He is now set to return to the Curragh and take on the current ante-post favourite for next year’s 2000 Guineas, the Richard Hannon-trained Strong Suit, in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes on Sunday, 8th August.

Prendergast reported: “We have given Dunboyne Express an entry in the Jumeirah Dewhurst Stakes and the race is certainly an option for him. He is hopefully running in the Phoenix Stakes on Sunday and, while I would rather that we weren’t coming up against Strong Suit, we are going to have to take him on at some point.

“He came out of the Anglesey Stakes well and he couldn’t have won more impressively. He had Samuel Morse eight lengths behind him and the same colt was beaten four and three-quarter lengths by Strong Suit in the Coventry Stakes, so we have some cause for optimism, although I am sure that Richard’s colt could have won by further at Royal Ascot.

“We have also entered a nice unraced colt Ansaab and Longhunter, who scoped badly after disappointing in the Railway Stakes but is fine now - hopefully he will be back for the Group 2 Futurity Stakes at the Curragh on 21st August.”