Kingman winning yesterday© Photo Healy Racing
Kingman can now be prepared to exact revenge on Night Of Thunder at Royal Ascot after his success in Saturday's Tattersalls Irish 2,000 Guineas.
Trainer John Gosden made a late decision to allow the colt to take his chance after walking the Curragh track, which was officially soft to heavy. The ground posed no problem as he quickened five lengths away from Shifting Power.
Kingman thrashed Night Of Thunder by almost the same distance in his prep run in the Greenham Stakes at Newbury, but lost his unbeaten record to the same Richard Hannon-trained colt when half a length in arrears in a rather unsatisfactory Newmarket Guineas, in which the runnners split and went down both sides of the track.
The pair are now heading for the St James's Palace Stakes on June 17.
"He's fine this morning, and the win gave us a lot of pleasure," said Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager for Kingman's owner Khalid Abdullah. "Hopefully it will revert to the Greenham form (at Ascot)."
Abdullah had another notable success on Saturday via Joyeuse, the three-year-old half-sister to the great Frankel, who took a six-furlong Listed race at Haydock under Ryan Moore. She had been only 11th in the 1,000 Guineas before that.
Grimthorpe said: "She did it nicely and it was a good ride from Ryan. It was nice to see her back on form. There aren't many options for sprinting fillies and we'll be studying the programme book."
