Ballydoyle team limber up at Navan Navan probably represents the calm before the storm for Aidan and Joseph O'Brien with next week's Royal Ascot meeting looming large, and they could well team up for a number of winners on the eight-race Flat card. Dick Whittington went into the notebook as a certain future winner when a fast-finishing second to Ger Lyons' Coventry Stakes fancy Cappella Sansevero at Naas last month. The Rip Van Winkle juvenile was subsequently sent off at prohibitive odds in a maiden at the Curragh on Irish 1,000 Guineas day, but probably found the very testing ground too much. He could make amends on this much sounder surface in the Lynn Lodge Stud EBF Median Auction Race. Lyons again provides the danger with course winner Dandyleekie, who appears here ahead of a date in the sales ring at the Goffs pre-Ascot event in London on Monday. Agena reappears in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Race having been off the course since making a winning debut on the Irish Champion Stakes card at Leopardstown last September. By Galileo out of the Storm Cat mare Dietrich, who won two Group Three sprints for Ballydoyle, he faces just three rivals but will have things far from his own way in what appears a competitive event. Maskoon was given a good, positive ride by Chris Hayes to score over course and distance last month, while Ponfeigh also has a recent mile maiden win to his credit at Leopardstown. The father and son combination also team up with top-weight Just Gorgeous, a daughter of O'Brien's 2008 Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Halfway To Heaven, in the Rotary Club Of Navan Handicap. The Galileo filly is still entered in next week's Ribblesdale Stakes plus the Darley Irish Oaks, and she can be expected to progress from a narrow maiden win at Cork last month. The Irish Stallion Farms EBF Fillies Maiden holds plenty of interest, and the O'Briens are represented here by Shell House. She was a promising second to better-fancied stablemate Dazzling on debut at the Curragh last year before finishing lame behind My Titania at Leopardstown. Dangers abound in this 10-furlong event with the likes of Carla Bianca, runner-up to Australia on debut at the Curragh last year, and Red Raven, a close third to Marvellous here last autumn, among her rivals.
