Gossamer Wings (left)© Photo Healy Racing
Aidan O’Brien’s high-class filly Gossamer Wings and Tom Hogan-trained evergreen sprinter Gordon Lord Byron represent opposite ends of the age spectrum among 21 entries for the Cork Stakes.
The five-and-a-half-furlong Listed race, run at Navan on Saturday, features five O’Brien possibles — all three-year-olds, including Sergei Prokofiev.
Gossamer Wings was beaten just a short head in last summer’s Group Two Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot.
She concluded her juvenile campaign with an honourable fifth in the Group One Cheveley Park Stakes — behind stablemates Fairyland and So Perfect — while Sergei Prokofiev also fared well at Newmarket, winning the Cornwallis Stakes.
All The King’s Men, Fantasy and Navan maiden winner Western Frontier complete the champion trainer’s contingent.
At 11, Gordon Lord Byron is eight years their senior and would be running at the weekend in the 95th race of a famously durable career which has brought him eight Group-race successes among his 13 victories.
Also among his potential opponents this time are Burmese Waltz — representing Ger Lyons, who took home one of the first big prizes of the new season when Karawaan won the Irish Lincolnshire on the opening day at Naas last weekend.
Fozzy Stack’s Son Of Rest, who dead-heated in last year’s Ayr Gold Cup, and Jim Bolger’s Group and Listed winner Smash Williams are other notable entries.
