Trainer Aidan O’Brien is following a tried-and-tested route towards the Ascot Gold Cup with Bondi Beach who contests the Vintage Crop Stakes at Navan.
The Galileo colt, part-owned by Australian Lloyd Williams, was briefly the winner of the St Leger winner last season.
Having finished just behind Simple Verse at Doncaster he was awarded the race in the stewards’ room only to lose it again on appeal.
After that run, Bondi Beach travelled to Australia, but failed to cut much ice in the Melbourne Cup, finishing 16th.
He looks set to play a major part in all the staying races this season, though, after winning comfortably on his comeback at Limerick, with a return to Australia already in the trainer’s thoughts.
“The Yorkshire Cup was an option, but he goes to the Vintage Crop Stakes at Navan on Sunday instead,” O’Brien told At The Races.
“He ran in the Melbourne Cup last year and that is a race we’ll have in our minds for this year, too.”
O’Brien has won the Vintage Crop with Yeats (twice), Fame And Glory (twice) and Leading Light.
Dermot Weld runs four-year-old mare Zannda in the race named for the horse he trained to win the 1993 Melbourne Cup.
