Last year's battling winner Pyledriver will bid to add his name to an elite group who have won the Coronation Cup more than once when he faces five rivals in Friday's DahlBury-sponsored Group 1, which forms part of the 35-race QIPCO British Champions Series.
The 5-year-old, who took his career earnings past the £1m mark when an unlucky-in-running fourth in Meydan's Sheema Classic in March, would join Petite Etoile (1960 and 1961), Triptych (1987 and 1988) and Warrsan (2003 and 2004), among dual winners, although he will have to come back again in 12 months' time if he is to match St Nicholas Abbey, who won in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
With regular pilot Martin Dwyer still sidelined by a knee injury, Dwyer's father-in-law William Muir has turned once again to QIPCO British Champions Series Hall of Famer Frankie Dettori, and he is hoping the partnership enjoys more luck than in Dubai, where Dettori reportedly admitted he should have won.
Muir, who had several near misses at the top level before gaining a first Group 1 win in just the third month of a new partnership with Chris Grassick, said: “Pyledriver ran a fabulous race in Dubai, but Frankie came back in and held his hands up and said he was sorry.
“He said he knew the track like the back of his hand and you always get a split up the rail, but he waited and waited and it never came. He said it cost him two lengths, and he was only beaten three-quarters of a length so you can work it out for yourselves. He said he should have won, but it was a great run and we've aimed at this race since.”
Everything has gone to plan, Muir said, and it's a bonus perhaps that Pyledriver does not face last year's Derby winner Adayar, who was initially being aimed here. Not that Muir would have dreamed of ducking the challenge.
Muir said: “After Pyledriver beat Al Aasy in last year's Coronation Cup we were aiming him at the King George, and his last piece of work, with a very good horse over at Charlie Hills's, was sensational, to say the least. I went home that day and thought it would take a very good horse to beat him in the King George, and I didn't care that the Derby winner was going there, but unfortunately he tore a muscle and he didn't run again until November, when we were preparing him for an international campaign.
“It was a phenomenal run when he was second in Hong Kong, the first time we had ever travelled him, and you can forget what happened in Saudi next time as he was drawn on the wide outside and nothing went right.”
While a clash with Adayar will have to wait for another day, Charlie Appleby nevertheless appears to saddle the main danger in Manobo, who was second in the two-mile Dubai Gold Cup the same day as Pyledriver ran in the Sheema Classic. Appleby might well have run Manobo in that race instead if he hadn't had Yibir for it, and he has said that dropping back in trip “is not a concern whatsoever”.
Jockey William Buick likes Manobo's chance and is hoping the Sea The Stars colt will give him a second, and more fulfilling, win in the race after horse of the year Ghaiyyath won a COVID-impacted Coronation Cup at a behind closed doors Newmarket two years ago.
Buick said: “Ghaiyyath was a very special horse, but the Coronation Cup is an Epsom race – simple as that – so hopefully it will never happen again.
“Manobo is still relatively unexposed. He took a big step forward in the Chaudenay, over a mile and seven furlongs at Longchamp in October, and he travelled supremely in the Nad Al Sheba Trophy over a mile six on his return in February. The Dubai Gold Cup was the first time he had been beaten, and they went very slow and so he did far too much. He did well to finish second that day, and what we saw there was a horse who needed to come back in trip.
“The Coronation Cup is a nice starting point for him back over a shorter trip. It's the first time he's run in a Group 1, and it's his first time racing around Epsom, although he had a spin round there last week during the gallops morning. He's a horse we don't know yet how good he is.”
Owen Burrows bids for a breakthrough first Group 1 win in his first season operating from new premises when he saddles Hukum, who was a Group 2 winner in Dubai before finishing a close seventh in the Sheema Classic, running on. Despite four Group wins Hukum finds himself living in the shadow of his younger brother Baaeed, the outstanding miler, but Burrows was “thrilled” with the Dubai run, which he feels was a career best, and he has been happy with him since.
Aidan O'Brien, seeking a ninth win in the Coronation Cup, will be represented by High Definition, who ran the race of his life when beaten only a neck by Alenquer, with State of Rest and Lord North close behind, in what looked a strong renewal of the ten-and-a-half furlong Tattersalls Gold Cup at The Curragh on 22nd May. He has yet to show his form over further, but he started favourite when hampered in last year's Irish Derby and is well worth another chance at the trip.
Living Legend was ambitiously named, but he is living up to it now. The six-year-old had such a bad tendon injury after winning three of his first five races that owners Barbara and Alick Richmond gave him to trainer Mark Johnston, but after two years in a field he came back to win a Pontefract handicap in September last year for Johnston Racing.
Once his soundness had been established, he was given back to the Richmonds, and he earned a supplementary entry here when completing a hat-trick with a Group 2 defeat of Yibir in the Jockey Club Cup at Newmarket during the QIPCO Guineas Festival.
The field is completed by Palavecino, who has not been seen since February, when he won a decent Lingfield handicap. He represents the in-form Brian Meehan.
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