Striking Impression

Still unexposed as a miler, the exciting Sir John Lavery (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) is one of Ballydoyle's more intriguing members of the Irish Champions weekend cast as he lines up in the G2 Clipper Logistics Boomerang S., or Solonaway S., at Leopardstown on Saturday. Looking every bit the classy colt connections believed him to be earlier this year when scoring over this trip in the Listed Platinum S. at Cork on Aug. 8, the one-time Derby prospect holds an entry in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II S. and has an ideal stepping stone here. “When we brought him back at Cork we were obviously delighted with him,” Aidan O'Brien commented. “We were obviously going the wrong way. He was very comfortable going that pace, so we're looking forward to him and looking forward to seeing how he goes on Saturday.”

Irish racing's back-from-the-brink story Alexios Komnenos (Ire) (Choisir {Aus}) is another with abundant promise, as he showed when taking the course-and-distance G3 Desmond S. in which the 2015 Solonaway winner Custom Cut (Ire) (Notnowcato {GB}) was third on Aug. 17. Alexios Komnenos's trainer Fozzy Stack is wary of deteriorating conditions, however. “He seems in good shape, but this is obviously another step up in class,” he said. “Everything has gone smoothly since then, it's always been a day-by-day thing with him. Hopefully we'll have no more rain, if it went heavy we'd have to think about running him. We'll keep him at a mile this year, hopefully he stays in training next year when we might think about stepping up.”