Fan favourite Pyledriver (GB) (Harbour Watch {Ire}), not seen at the races since defeating Torquator Tasso (Ger) (Adlerflug {Ger}) in the G1 King George & Queen Elizabeth Diamond S. at Ascot July 23, will not be ready for a tilt at the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Turf at Keeneland Race Course Nov. 5, co-trainer William Muir told At The Races Monday.
“I think it will come too soon and there's no way I'm putting pressure on him at any stage,” the conditioner told At The Races's Luke Harvey. “He's swimming every day and doing loads of it and he's in the swimming pool with a high current and he goes through it like he's a jet plane. But I don't want to come back and go straight into having to gallop, gallop, and if I'm going to America for Breeders' Cup, I need to be 100% fit. It's coming quickly.”
Winner of the G2 King Edward VII S. at Royal Ascot as a 3-year-old, Pyledriver earned a maiden Group 1 success in last year's G1 Coronation Cup on Derby weekend and closed the season with a runner-up effort in the G1 Longines Hong Kong Vase. A close fourth in the G1 Dubai Sheema Classic this past March, he was beaten into second in defence of his Coronation Cup before defying odds of 18-1 at Ascot last time.
A trip to the Far East appears in the offing once more for Pyledriver, all things equal.
“Our options have always been Breeders' Cup, Japan Cup or Hong Kong,” Muir said. “The Japan Cup may well come right, and if so, we'll nominate him for the Japan Cup, and if we get there we get there. If not, we've got Hong Kong, if not, we have to wait for the Sheema Classic.”
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