Autumn Targets For Hawkbill

Hawkbill (Kitten's Joy) is proving a credit to Charlie Appleby both this season and last and the trainer is hoping to add to the colt's solitary Group 1 success later this autumn. The 4-year-old got the better of his better fancied stable-mate Frontiersman (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) in the G2 Princess Of Wales's Arqana Racing Club S. at Newmarket a fortnight ago and Appleby then resisted the temptation of running him in the G1 King George at Ascot last Saturday despite the soft ground being in Hawkbill's favour. “The ground had come right for Hawkbill in the King George, but he had two close runs together in France and at Newmarket and it looked tough enough on paper and I thought if I place him well enough in the second half of the season hopefully he will have a nice pot in him still,” Appleby said on Sunday. The Godolphin colt will now be rested until later in the year when Appleby has a some international targets in mind. “I didn't want to go to the well too often. I've said after each run I am trying to give the horse a bit of a break so I am enforcing a bit of a break on him now. Looking further ahead there is potentially the [GI] Canadian International or the [G1] Grosser Pries Von Bayern, which he finished third in last year. We will just try and get another Group One behind him.”