Area Of Gold will bypass York’s Juddmonte Worldwide Stakes as he continues his restoration from the setback sustained when struggling a shock defeat at Goodwood final week.
John and Thady Gosden’s Irish 2,000 Guineas and Royal Ascot hero was found to be lame after tasting defeat for simply the second time this season within the Sussex Stakes and though there are encouraging indicators in his recuperation, a step as much as 10 furlongs on the Knavesmire has been dominated out by his crew.
The son of Kingman will endure X-rays on Wednesday which is able to give a clearer indication of the prognosis, with Juddmonte’s European racing supervisor Barry Mahon saying: “The horse is doing well and was back sound, which is good.
“He is obtained a bit of little bit of swelling in his fetlock however John and Thady are a lot happier with him so the plan is to do the X-ray on Wednesday – they’ve simply pushed it again a day, because the longer you may go away it, the clearer the image is.
“That can give us some extra perception and if the X-ray is evident, we will hopefully begin again into some gentle train in direction of the tip of the week or early subsequent week.
“York though is definitely not going to happen at this stage.”
Having dazzled when claiming Basic honours in Eire and scorching to St James’ Palace Stakes victory on the Royal assembly, there was loads of dialog over whether or not Area Of Gold will attempt to repeat these heroics up in journey or proceed to be the stand out performer of the yr at eight furlongs.
The Juddmonte star holds entries in each the Prix du Moulin (ParisLongchamp, September 7) and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (Ascot, October 18) at a mile later within the marketing campaign, whereas he might but check the waters up in distance in Leopardstown’s Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes on September 13.
Nevertheless, the colt’s title was notably lacking from the entries for the Qipco Champion Stakes over additional on the identical afternoon as his engagement within the QEII, with race planning at present taking a backseat till one of many season’s prime performers returns to full health.
Mahon added: “It was the plan pre-Goodwood to stick at a mile for the time being and obviously there has been no chat about potential races since Goodwood, we’re just going to have to let the dust settle and let him get back into exercise and then when he is fit make a plan from there.
“You might be entering into that point of yr when there’s not an abundance of alternatives and there’s the Moulin, QEII otherwise you go as much as a mile and 1 / 4 for the races at that distance.
“So I wouldn’t say there is a huge amount of options, but we’ll just wait and see and let the horse tell us.”
