Galway Festival Preview:Galway and Melbourne may be on opposite ends of the planet but King In Waiting will attempt to provide a winning link between the two when John Oxx's horse lines up at Ballybrit tonight.
The one-time Derby hope is an entry in November's Melbourne Cup and Oxx looks to have secured a suitable opportunity for King In Waiting to get back to winning form in the mile and six conditions race.
King In Waiting's only success in an injury-curtailed four-race career to date came in the spring of last year when an impressive maiden win at the Curragh briefly provoked some fancy odds for Epsom.
Those hopes fizzled out in a subsequent third to Puerto Rico in the Gallinule Stakes but then we didn't see the full brother to the St Leger hero Millenary until this spring when he returned to action with a run in the Mooresbridge.
A subsequent third to Yeats in the Savel Beg indicated some progress and the 100 rating King In Waiting has at the moment makes a convincing argument in the company he faces this evening.
Vintage Crop's jockey Michael Kinane will be the ideal man to decide if any Melbourne dreams can be entertained in future but it's hardly unknown for Ballybrit to provide a hint to a Melbourne Cup winner.
It's just five years to the day since Media Puzzle ran stone last in today's €70,000 feature, the Guinness Handicap, and only three months later ran away with Australia's most famous race!
This time round, Dermot Weld throws both Caheerloch and Vital Plot at the mile and a half day-five festival highlight but this isn't a race that has been particularly kind to the Ballybrit legend and it is 14 years since Weld last won it with Garboni.
It will be no easy task to bridge that gap either as it looks a fiercely competitive event with the Australian bred Do The Trick aiming to follow up his narrow defeat of Forthright here on Wednesday.
The Halford runner has a 5lb penalty for that and although his old rival will have Seamus Heffernan on board rather than a 7lb claimer, the crucial part for Forthright followers will be the 8st 11lb he has to carry.
Forthright looked set to swamp Do The Trick on Wednesday until his topweight started to bite on the final hill. However, he is on the right side of the nine stone mark now and compensation could await.
Last year's leading festival rider Declan McDonogh has been switching his attention between Galway and Goodwood this week and he looks a significant booking in the concluding auction maiden for Tellhimnow.
Jimmy Coogan's horse was ridden by John Murtagh on his Curragh debut where he ran well enough behind the high-class New Approach. There should be improvement to come from that run.
Both Aidan O'Brien and Dermot Weld are represented in the mile and a half maiden but a value alternative to both those heavy-hitters could come from the Ger Lyons yard with Common Charisma.
The filly is unproven at the distance but the ground should be better than she encountered on her last start when third to Vital Plot at Naas and she also ran well before that with an admittedly distant second to the high-class Profound Beauty.
If Hypnotic Vibes was trained by anyone else around here but Weld, he would probably be a longer price while the Ballydoyle runner Diego Velasquez has shown little in his two starts that would suggest he is capable of even winning an ordinary maiden.
Charlie Swan throws Kit Carson and Anno Jubilo, who are both in the same ownership, at the two-mile handicap chase. If he is ridden aggressively by the 5lb claimer Denis Hogan, then the course and distance winner Anno Jubilo would look to have a decent chance in a competitive heat.
