Daryz connections will bide time before firming up future plans

Connections of Daryz have yet to firm up plans for his next appearance following his defeat at Royal Ascot last week.

Last season’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner had made a flying start to his four-year-old campaign by adding to his Group One tally with wins in the Prix Ganay and Prix Aga Khan IV, and expectations were high ahead of a highly-anticipated clash with Ombudsman in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

But while Francis-Henri Graffard’s colt performed better than when failing to fire on his first start in Britain in last summer’s Juddmonte International, he was ultimately no match for John and Thady Gosden’s brilliant winner and was beaten just under six lengths into third place.

Nemone Routh, French racing manager and director for Daryz’s owners the Aga Khan Studs, feels the fact that the son of Sea The Stars weakened late on to be beaten to the runner-up spot by Minnie Hauk, who he beat in the Arc last October, is evidence he was not at his best.

“He’s come out of the race fine, but we felt like he didn’t really show his form,” she said.

“Obviously Ombudsman won very well and I’m not saying he would have beaten him, but in terms of his form lines he should have been closer to Minnie Hauk and it’s very unlike him for his last furlong to be his worst furlong – normally he powers through the last furlong.

“He travelled over fine but he didn’t really enjoy being in the racecourse stables the day before – he was getting quite upset with all the horses going off to the track and coming back. Maybe the trip didn’t go so well in terms of how the race went either.

“It was better than York and if he’d finished a good second and maintained the form with Minnie Hauk, I think we’d have said there were no excuses, but to us he didn’t finish his race out like he should and it’s a case of trying to understand why. It’s a combination of things, I think.”

While in no rush to commit to future targets, Routh ruled out another trip across the Channel for the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown in early July and it seems more likely he will remain on home soil for the foreseeable future.

Routh added: “He’s not Calandagan, who you can almost travel anywhere as long as the ground is not too heavy and he takes everything in his stride. It’s twice now we’ve travelled Daryz and twice he hasn’t really run up to our expectations.

“We’re not going to bring him out again quickly as he did have three races in quick succession and we brought him out of the winter quite early because he was getting quite fresh. He hadn’t run since the Arc and is a big strong horse, so he started back on the grass quite early to get ready for the Prix Ganay and we probably need to back off him a little bit now and freshen him up.

“We haven’t made any decision about what his next race will be, but he’s certainly not going to be turning up in the Eclipse or anything quickly.

“The discussion we need to have is if the Arc is the main objective, how do you work back from that? We kind of need to regroup, but the positive news is he’s come out of the race fine.”