Ed Walker is excited to unleash Miss Tonnerre in the Tattersalls Musidora Stakes as he plans on bringing a quality team to York next week.<\/p>\n
The Upper Lambourn-based trainer acknowledges it will be a \u201cbig week\u201d for his Kingsdown Stables operation with prospective runners in stakes races on each day of the three-day Dante Festival on the Knavesmire.<\/p>\n
Wednesday is set to see Miss Tonnerre<\/a><\/strong> line up in the Group 3 Musidora, staged over an extended mile and a quarter.<\/p>\n She shaped with a large amount of promise under jockey Tom Marquand when finishing fourth to subsequent 1000 Guineas heroine, Desert Flower, in the Group 2 May Hill Stakes at Doncaster last September (see free video replay, below).<\/p>\n The daughter of Night Of Thunder had one further race in 2024, taking fourth place in very testing ground in Deauville.<\/p>\n Walker said: \u201cThe filly did very little wrong last year \u2013 it was a huge run behind Desert Flower at Donny on only her second start. I said to Tom, \u2018If she\u2019s good enough, great. If she\u2019s not, don\u2019t give her too hard a time.\u2019 And it was a seriously exciting run.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s done exceptionally well through the winter \u2013 I think she\u2019s a really exciting filly. And it was nice to see one of our better three-year-old fillies (American Gal) land a Listed race earlier in the week in France.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this filly\u2019s going to be very competitive over a mile and a quarter on a nice flat galloping track. I wouldn\u2019t want the ground too quick, but it should just be lovely ground I think.\u201d <\/p>\n In Walker\u2019s mind, Miss Tonnerre is more likely to be a contender for the French Oaks (Prix de Diane) than line up for a Classic at Epsom. <\/p>\n And, in the same vein, he\u2019s given thought to the French Derby (Prix du Jockey Club) as a possible destination for his Al Basti Equiworld Dubai Dante Stakes entry, Mister Rizz<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n Last weekend the Lope De Vega colt had just his second racecourse start when easily scoring in a mile and a quarter maiden at Doncaster. Now he\u2019s being primed for a serious rise in class and a shot at Thursday\u2019s \u00a3180,000 Group 2 on the Knavesmire.<\/p>\n Walker added: \u201cIt\u2019s a big ask, a big step into the Dante, but he\u2019s bred for the job, he was bought for the job. He\u2019s finished second and first in his only two starts and we\u2019re there to put him in against good horses and see how he gets on.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe he belongs higher than another novice grade of race. And he wasn\u2019t bought to be a handicapper, so we\u2019ll see where we are. <\/p>\n \u201cI think he\u2019s more of a Jockey Club than a Derby horse. He\u2019s got stacks of speed, hence I started him over a mile. I know you need speed to win a Derby, but I just feel he\u2019s more of a 10-furlong horse than a 12-furlong horse.\u201d<\/p>\n On Friday, Walker intends to run Troia<\/a> <\/strong>in the Listed Sky Bet Fillies (registered as the Michael Seely Memorial Fillies Stakes). The daughter of Kingman will be stepping up to a mile after winning a seven-furlong novice contest at Catterick on her seasonal bow last month.<\/p>\n Walker, who won the Michael Seely with Primo Bacio in 2021, said: \u201cTroia is two from three. Her only defeat was in the Oh So Sharp stakes and I think she\u2019s quite an exciting filly. So, we\u2019ve got a good team heading up there next week.<\/p>\n \u201cI love York \u2013 York\u2019s been good to me. We had an amazing day there last August with Celandine and Scenic winning. It\u2019s a seriously hard track to have winners, but that\u2019s what makes it more satisfying when you do.\u201d<\/p>\n The Dante Festival gets under way at 2.10pm on Wednesday. The first race is the Sky Bet Race to the Ebor Jorvik Handicap.<\/p>\n More from Sporting LifeSafer gambling<\/p>\n We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.<\/p>\n If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline \/ GamCare<\/a><\/strong> on 0808 8020 133.<\/p>\n Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org<\/a><\/strong> and gamblingtherapy.org<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ed Walker is excited to unleash Miss Tonnerre in the Tattersalls Musidora Stakes as he plans on bringing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-87420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-racing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114478036065416979","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}