Aidan O'Brien indicated yesterday that both Eagle Mountain and Mount Nelson will take their chance in Saturday's Emirates Airline Champion Stakes at Newmarket before the champion trainer's Grade One focus switches across the Atlantic to Woodbine in Toronto on Sunday night when Honolulu and Michael Kinane will fly the Irish flag in the €1.5 million Canadian International.
Mount Nelson will be making a belated start to the 2007 campaign after an injury-hit three-year-old career but both last season's juvenile Group One winner and Eagle Mountain will be in the field when final 48 hour declarations are made this morning.
Song Of Hiawatha, the third O'Brien Champion entry, is unlikely to run, and no firms plans have been made about which if any of the four Ballydoyle colts remaining in the Dewhurst Stakes will take their chance in what is turning into the season's juvenile championship event.
Jim Bolger's New Approach remains as low as 6 to 4 favourite against Raven's Pass, Rio De La Plata and a number of other high class juveniles after a work-out earlier this week that Bolger described as "scintillating".
The trainer was reported yesterday to say: "He is the best I've seen of the two-year-olds. The ground will be fine. He isn't facing anything he hasn't faced before. It doesn't matter how the race is run. He doesn't have to lead."
However, after Saturday afternoon's Newmarket card, the international focus will switch to Canada where Honolulu will try to emulate O'Brien's 2002 International winner Ballingarry against a high-class field.
"He seems fine over there and has settled in okay," O'Brien reported yesterday of Honolulu who will be taking on older horses again after finishing third in the Cumberland Lodge Stakes to another of Sunday night's runners, Ask, at Ascot.
Kinane will also be aboard John Oxx's Four Sins in the Grade One EP Taylor Stakes and she will attempt to emulate the trainer's 1995 winner Timarida in the mile and a quarter $1 million race.
"She's in good form over there and she travelled well. The ground is quite good, apparently, which is fine because we would like good or faster.
"We ran Kastoria at the meeting last year and it got very wet which she couldn't handle at all," said the Curragh trainer yesterday.
Oxx also confirmed he will be represented at the Breeders' Cup meeting, which is now just eight days away, at Monmouth Park, New Jersey, as Timarwa, a daughter of Timarida, has got into the final field of 13 for the filly and mare race.
"We had been worried about the 14-runner limit but there's only 13 in so that's the first hurdle cleared," he reported. "We are taking a chance but this will be her final race and she's going to stud over there anyway so the plan is to run."
Oxx added: "She will have an outsider's chance of running a good race. She's been running against the best company on unsuitable ground all year so we're hoping a mile and three on fast ground over there will suit her. There will be no Peeping Fawn or Light Shift against her this time so she should have an outside chance of running well."
For the first time, the Breeders' Cup will be a 10-race affair with three new $1 million races run on the Friday.
The new races are a filly and mare sprint, a dirt mile and also a juvenile turf race in which Dermot Weld plans to run the Moyglare Stud-owned Domestic Fund. The half brother to Refuse To Bend and Media Puzzle was a four-length runner-up to Curtain Call in the Beresford Stakes on his last start at the Curragh.
Achill Island, runner-up in Ascot's Royal Lodge Stakes, is a possible Ballydoyle runner in the same race, while Aidan O'Brien confirmed yesterday All My Loving could earn a filly and mare place if running well in Sunday's Finale Stakes at the Curragh.
O'Brien's other Breeders' Cup contenders are George Washington (Classic), Dylan Thomas (Turf) and Excellent Art in the Mile.
