Dubai: Godolphin handler Charlie Appleby has big plans for his two-year-old star in the making of Masar, who looks to be progressing well following impressive performances at Goodwood, Ascot and Sandown this season.
The son of New Approach looked the classy type that his handler hopes he has the potential to be, when comfortably defeating Invincible Army to win the Group 3 Solario Stakes at Goodwood last week.
As a result Appleby is taking a positive approach and has nominated two significant end of season targets for Masar, including the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes at Newmarket (September 17) and the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at Chantilly (October 1).
“He has come out of Saturday’s race at Sandown very well, and we now have to consider the options available to him,” Appleby said on the Godolphin website.
“We will look more closely at factors such as ground and the strength of the respective races before committing. But he is well, and I am keen to run him again.”
Both the Royal Lodge and Lagardere have been targeted by trainer’s with an eye on the next season’s Classics.
However, only one horse in the past three decades has won the Lagardere and gone on to Classic glory the following season — Rock Of Gibraltar (2001), who captured the 2,000 Guineas.
Formerly raced as the Grand Criterium, the Lagardere is France’s oldest and most prestigious event for juvenile horses. It is the country’s equal richest race for this age group, along with the Prix Morny. Each race has a current purse of €350,000.
Godolphin have previously won the race in 2007 with Rio de la Plata.
The winner earns an automatic invitation to compete in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.
The Royal Lodge is also a useful pointer to the future as Mr Baileys (1993) and Frankel (2010) went on to win the next year’s 2,000 Guineas.
Benny The Dip took the 1996 version of the Royal Lodge prior to winning the following year’s Epsom Derby.
The Solario Stakes is a good stepping stone to bigger things. Alhaarth (1995) went on to win the Group 1 Dewhurst, Raven’s Pass (2007) took the following year’s Group 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic, while Kingman (2013) won the Group 1 Irish 2,000 Guineas.
