Armory looks a proper horse

The Ballydoyle Juveniles section on page 106 of Ahead On The Flat nominated eight unraced two year olds trained by Aidan O'Brien. They include last week's Group 2 Coventry Stakes winner Arizona and on Thursday evening another potential star was unveiled in Armory. The Galileo colt had shown plenty of promise on his debut at Leopardstown earlier this month finishing third and confirmed that view with a most impressive success on the first day of the Irish Derby meeting at the Curragh. Donnacha O'Brien was forced to sit and wait before a gap opened up and, once it did, Armouy didn't need a second invitation as he quickened up smartly to win going away by two and a quarter lengths. The Group 2 Superlative Stakes at Newmarket's July meeting (Saturday 13th) was touted as a possible target afterwards. O'Brien has won the seven furlongs event three times, including with Gustav Klimt a couple of years ago.

The Names To Note section in the Royal Ascot Update was amongst the winners at Newmarket on Friday with a short price double. The impeccably bred Faylaq defied a six pounds penalty (due to go up twelve pounds in future) with ease as he followed up his win at Ripon seven days earlier. Jim Crowley's mount barely came off the bridle before pulling six lengths clear. A colt by Dubawi out of Danedream, he has a bright future with Pattern race aspirations one day. William Haggas' horses are in terrific form with 17 winners from 61 runners at a strike-rate of 28% in the last fortnight. Just over an hour, the same owners' Nazeef looked a filly with a good future when winning on her second start on the July course. Third behind stablemate Nonchalance on her debut this month, she wasn't hard pressed to win over the same C&D by a length and a quarter. Another novice stakes is likely to be her next and then, all being well, John Gosden's filly will be stepped up in grade.

I will be back to update the Diary shortly. In the meantime, I am working at my local track Cartmel on Friday and Sunday and, with the weather set fair, there should be bumper attendances on both days.