Aidan O'Brien expects big improvement from Storm Boy at Ascot

Aidan O'Brien has typically been amongst the winners this week at Royal Ascot and the Ballydoyle maestro will be hoping to brew up a Saturday Storm as the meeting closes.

Storm Boy was an expensive arrival from Australia over the winter and, while he was well held on his Irish debut last month at the Curragh, his trainer says that was very much a fact-finding mission.

O'Brien said he expects marked improvement from Storm Boy at Royal Ascot as he confirmed that the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes is his target.

3.406f. 14 Declared.
Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes (Group 1) (Class 1 ) of £1,000,000.00 4-y-o plus

• Formscan
• Race Info

1st - €567,100.00 2nd - €215,000.00 3rd - €107,600.00 4th - €53,600.00 5th - €26,900.00 6th - €13,500.00 Going - Good to Firm. 

Formscan - Last year's Commonwealth Cup hero Inisherin is back for more and showed more than enough when victorious in the Clipper at York to suggest he is set for a big run. French raider Lazzat romped home in Listed company at Chantilly last time and took the Prix Maurice de Gheest with the minimum of fuss last August, so he commands huge respect. However, a chance can be taken on TOPGEAR. Christopher Head's six-year-old comfortably struck in a Group 3 at Longchamp on his return and the drop back to this distance looks a good move. He may get the race run to suit and could be the one to beat.

Tap Runner to view all Odds

  Odds Shortening Odds Lengthening

1116	2nd	Satono Reve	7/2 2/1	5/2
513	7th	Inisherin		7/2
811	1st	Lazzat	4/1 13/2	6/1
137	14th	Topgear	9/1 9/2	7/1
1215	10th	Storm Boy	12/1 9/1	14/1
144	3rd	Flora Of Bermuda	6/1 14/1	19/1
29	12th	Elite Status	16/1 22/1	27/1
1510	9th	Great Generation		64/1
38	11th	Grand Grey		69/1
42	5th	Iberian	25/1 50/1	74/1
76	6th	Jasour		74/1
112	13th	Annaf	11/1 40/1	79/1
91	8th	Run To Freedom		139/1
1614	4th	Nighteyes		219/1
103	n.r.	Sajir		30
65	n.r.	James's Delight		70
Betting Percentage
Each-Way Terms

 

11¹⁶

Satono Reve 7

5/2

2nd

Rating: 118

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

5/2

5¹³

Inisherin 5

7/2

7th

Rating: 116

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

7/2

8¹¹

Lazzat 5

6/1

1st

Rating: 118

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

6/1

13⁷

Topgear 7

7/1

14th

Rating: 116

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

7/1

12¹⁵

Storm Boy 5

14/1

10th

Rating: 113

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

14/1

14⁴

Flora Of Bermuda 5

19/1

3rd

Rating: 112

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

19/1

2⁹

Elite Status 5

27/1

12th

Rating: 111

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

27/1

10³

Sajir 5

n.r.

Rating: 111

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

15¹⁰

Great Generation 5

64/1

9th

Rating: 110

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

64/1

3⁸

Grand Grey 5

69/1

11th

Rating: 107

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

69/1

6⁵

James's Delight 5

n.r.

Rating: 109

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

4²

Iberian 5

74/1

5th

Rating: 107

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

74/1

7⁶

Jasour 5

74/1

6th

Rating: 107

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

74/1

1¹²

Annaf 7

79/1

13th

Rating: 107

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

79/1

9¹

Run To Freedom 8

139/1

8th

Rating: 108

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

139/1

16¹⁴

Nighteyes 5

219/1

4th

Rating: 102

• Odds

Price

E/W

Moves

219/1

Aussie form looks good

The speedy son of Justify won five times in Australia for Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, with his best performance coming in the Group 3 San Domenico Stakes at Rosehill, where he mastered Mayfair impressively by three lengths to earn a Racing Post Rating of 117.

Coolmore are rumoured to have shelled out A$50m over the winter to acquire him.

Such a move naturally evoked memories of Starspangledbanner. It is now 15 years since he made a seamless transition from Australia to Ireland and landed the then Golden Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot on only his second start for Aidan O'Brien in 2010.

If he is to emulate that, he will have to pick up quickly from this debut run in Ireland.

Greenlands run peters out

Storm Boy made his debut for O'Brien at Group 2 level in last month's Greenlands Stakes, but did not live up to his billing as the 6/4 favourite when coming home last of nine runners.

He broke well for Ryan Moore at the Curragh and was racing handily, but when the runners settled down to battle in the final two furlongs his effort didn't last and he was beaten just under six-lengths at the line.

"He was beaten less than six lengths and he got a bad enough check at the two (furlong) marker. You could take another two off that, so he probably would have been beaten less than four lengths," said his trainer afterwards.

"That was a very respectable run. I know everyone was disappointed, but we think we'll take him home now and we're going to train him."

Plenty improvement expected for Royal Ascot assignment

After that Curragh run, the Ballydoyle supremo further expanded that his Australian import had not done much at home.

Indeed, O'Brien went on to reveal that Storm Boy had run at the Kildare circuit a very fresh horse.

"He had never been galloped or worked, but we had to run him to find out what else we had to work on between now and Ascot," he added.

"We learned that we have a good bit to work on, but I was very happy to do that. We haven't really trained him yet and hopefully what we think will come, will come."

On that note, Storm Boy's supporters will be confident that a much better version of the three-year-old should be anticipated on Saturday.

Alongside Starspangledbanner in 2010, O'Brien also landed the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes with Merchant Navy in 2018.

He, too, was an Aussie import and remains the most recent three-year-old winner of the Royal Ascot sprint. O'Brien will be hoping history can repeat itself with his latest southern hemisphere speedster.