Premio Loco supplemented for Sussex Stakes
Many of the runners in next week’s Sussex Stakes will have taken a relatively straight path to the race.
Having started off in maidens they will then have worked their up the Group-races pyramid, often like, Candford Cliffs, d**k Turpin and Rip Van Winkle, taking in the Classic as three-year-olds. But Premio Loco has taken a more circuitous route.
His 21st career start will be his debut at championship level but fresh from a career-best performance, when the gelding won the Group Two Summer Mile at Ascot two weeks ago, Premio Loco’s trainer, Chris Wall, has decided that the time is right to go full steam ahead.
Wall has supplemented the six-year-old, at a cost of £19,500, for the mile contest, the highlight of the second day of Glorious Goodwood next Wednesday.
Premio Loco, who joins 12 horses still remaining at the six-day confirmation stage, is unbeaten in his two previous starts and proved that he can handle what can be an idiosyncratic course when he won his only start at Goodwood in the Listed On The House Stakes on his only previous start there last year. “We’ve supplemented Premio Loco and it’s his most likely target at Goodwood,” Wall said. “We gave him the option of the Betfair Cup as a fall-back but this looks a good opportunity for a chance in Group One company.
“He won well at Ascot and one could argue that he could have done it rather more convincingly with a clearer run and he’s continued to be in good form at home since that race. We looked at the last forfeit stage for the Sussex Stakes and we’d finished in front of the vast majority of the entries. We haven’t come up against Canford Cliffs and Rip Van Winkle and, on their day, they are proper horses so they won’t be easy to beat. But we might as well have a crack at them while we’re fit and well and everything is in our favour.”
The trainer with the strongest hand in the Sussex appears to be Richard Hannon who has Canford Cliffs, the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes, along with d**k Turpin, who was second to his stable companion at Royal Ascot before impressing in the Group One Prix Jean Prat at Chantilly last time.
Also included among the 13 is Aidan O’Brien’s Rip Van Winkle, who will need to return from a disappointing seasonal reappearance in the Queen Anne Stakes at the royal meeting if he is to become the first dual winner of the race.
O’Brien, seeking a fifth success in the race, could also be represented by Beethoven, last year’s Dewhurst Stakes winner, Black Quartz, Encompassing and Steinbeck, who finished two-and-a-half lengths second to Famous Name in the Group Three Meld Stakes at Leopardstown tonight.
Famous Name is also entered in the Sussex but his trainer, Dermot Weld, was leaning more towards either the Prix Jacques le Marois at Deuaville or a trip to Chicago for the Arlington Million.
Godolphin’s trainer Saeed bin Suroor, who has won the Sussex Stakes three times, relies on Alexandros this time but with little apparent stable confidence.
The ground at Goodwood is currently good on the straight course and good to firm on the round course. Seamus Buckley, Goodwood’s clerk of the course, said: “We had a welcome eight millimetres of rain this morning, which has eased the pressure on the watering programme.
“We’ll continue to monitor the situation so that the going remains as described for racing next week. The GoingStick reading on the straight course is 8.1, which is indicative of good ground.”
Tags: