Weather watch for Mourayan Mourayan looks set to take his chance in the Ballyroan Stakes at Leopardstown on Thursday - providing ground conditions are in his favour. The Alhaarth colt has yet to finish out of the places in three starts this season, and turned in a fine display to finish third behind Fame And Glory and Golden Sword in the Irish Derby on his latest outing. Trainer John Oxx is keen to take his chance in the Group Three contest, with next week's Ladbrokes Great Voltigeur Stakes at York as a possible back-up plan. "He's a likely runner on Thursday, but it just depends on the ground as he does like a little ease. If it's suitable I expect we'll let him run," said Oxx. "He's also in the Great Voltigeur at York on Tuesday, but if the ground is right at Leopardstown he would run this week for fear the ground would be too fast by next week. We'll run the first chance we have where the ground is right, so if he does miss this week the Voltigeur is a possibility. "He's been fine since the Irish Derby and just had a short break afterwards. He's fresh and well at the moment so we would like to get a run into him. I think we'll keep the blinkers on him as he travelled well in them in the Derby - he looked sharp and ran a good race." Speaking about current conditions on the Knavesmire, York chief executive William Derby told Racing UK: "We are really happy and it was good ground today, 7.5 on the GoingStick. We had a lovely couple of days at the weekend, with 2mm of rain this morning. "It's nice good ground, with perfect grass cover at the moment. There maybe some rain on the way at weekend but then clearing for the start of next week."
