Elm Park, last seen trailing home with just one horse behind him in the Derby, will bid to get his career back on track at Sandown on Wednesday when he takes a big drop in class and surprisingly reverts to a mile in the Fortune Stakes.
Last year’s winner of the Royal Lodge Stakes and Racing Post Trophy started the campaign as one of the strong fancies for the Epsom Classic, and after finishing third to the subsequent Derby first and second, Golden Horn and Jack Hobbs, in the mile-and-a-quarter Dante at York in May went off the 9-1 fourth favourite. But the Andrew Balding-trained colt pulled far too hard in the early stages at Epsom and was soon beaten after being overtaken in the home straight.
Elm Park will be racing over half a mile less on Wednesday and will face the consistent Gabrial, Decorated Knight and Clive Cox’s progressive My Dream Boat.
“It seems like a while since we last saw him,” said David Redvers, racing manager for the owner, Qatar Racing, which was in the news at the weekend when its Simple Verse was thrown out after winning the St Leger at Doncaster.
“He’s in very good order, according to Andrew, who is very happy with him. This looks like a perfect race to find out whether we should be looking at going over 10 furlongs or whatever,” added Redvers.
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