Options open up for Brown Panther Tom Dascombe will weigh up the future for Brown Panther after Sunday's Palmerstown House Estate Irish St Leger at the Curragh. A six-and-a-half-length winner of the race last year, he has had just two outings this year after suffering an injury. After claiming the Dubai Gold Cup at Meydan in March, he was then edged out by Sir Michael Stoute's Melbourne Cup-bound Snow Sky in the Yorkshire Cup back in May but has not run since. The seven-year-old has the option of another crack at the Melbourne Cup, in which he finished eighth in 2013, or the Long Distance Cup on Champions Day following his Irish reappearance and connections are keen to see how he gets on. Dascombe said: "We are very lucky to have a great vet and surgeon on site able to treat him very quickly after his injury and we're pleased things have gone well since. "He won it last year and the timings have worked out. After Sunday, we'll see if we run him again. "He's in the Melbourne Cup - t hat's a possibility. He's also in the stayers' race at Ascot on Champions Day. That might be a more logical race, we'll see." Luca Cumani's Second Step has been nothing short of a revelation this season, beating Telescope in the Jockey Club Stakes and running Big Orange close in the Princess of Wales's Stakes before claiming his first Group One in Germany. That victory came under an inspired ride from Jamie Spencer as he appeared to have no chance turning into the short straight before getting up in the dying strides over a mile and a half, suggesting this extra distance should prove no problem at all. A measure of his progress is that he travelled over to Ireland last October with a handicap mark of 93 and won a Listed race. "He's had a very good season so far as the winner of a Group Two and he won a Group One in Germany last time out very well," said Cumani. "He's won at the Curragh before, so he likes the track, a good galloping track. He goes there with every chance."
