More Than Ready’s Verrazano showed the potential to go on to greater things in future with a third in the Lockinge S. Gr.1 at his first U.K start.
A dual Grade 1 winner in the States, Verrazano was having his first start for Aidan O’Brien and made a nice debut for his new yard, keeping on soundly from the back close home.
He is sure to come on for this and is entered in both the Queen Anne and the Prince of Wales’s at Royal Ascot and O’Brien suggested he could be kept to a mile for now.
“I’m delighted with that for his first run in this part of the world. Joseph [O’Brien, jockey] said he was very green would you believe? He’s never raced in the middle of horses on grass like that – it’s totally different for him,” he said.
“We’re going to look forward to him and were over the moon with the run. The lads will decide but maybe the Queen Anne is what we’ll look at.”
Comments from Ballydoyle are below as reported in the Thoroughbred Daily News. tdn.com
“We would like to run him and he is a very exciting horse but the little bit of a worry going to Ascot is that we might not know a lot about him going there. You would like to get a run into before Ascot as you would like to know what to do with him over there–whether you drop him in or make the running. He is a great cruiser and he has half speeded here and he looks very exciting. He has dirt experience and if we got him to come through the summer, he could be a horse that could end up in the Breeders’ Cup again. All the work was done with him before he came to us. He is very natural and very relaxed. It probably takes them a good bit of time to acclimatise when they come over and maybe in the Kentucky Derby he might not have gotten the trip.”
4yo c, More Than Ready–Enchanted Rock,by Giant=s Causeway) Lifetime Record: 11-6-0-2. O-Mrs John Magnier
