The Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson will tomorrow make an audacious bid to win one of Britain's most prestigious two-year-old races with a horse who has never run before.
Juniper, a colt by Danzig, will carry Ferguson's red and white colours on his debut in the Group Two Scottish Equitable Gimcrack Stakes.
Juniper's trainer Aidan O'Brien won the race with Mull Of Kintyre last year but Juniper will be the only horse in the race never to have set foot on a racecourse before.
"I know it's a tall order starting him off in the Gimcrack Stakes but he's a nice colt who's really well and ready for a run," O'Brien said yesterday on the eve of his tilt at today's Juddmonte International with Giant's Causeway.
Before that this morning he will give a blow out to his Nunthorpe Stakes entry Bernstein to see if the Storm Cat colt will revert to five furlongs for Thursday's Group One York feature.
"I don't think the drop back to five furlongs will bother him but maybe this race is just a little quick after his win at Ascot. We'll see how he is in the morning," said O'Brien.
The Ballydoyle trainer will run two other juveniles tomorrow. Joplin, a winner at Navan will go in the Listed Roses Stakes over five furlongs and the Nureyev colt King Charlemagne will make his debut in the Moorestyle Convivial Stakes over six furlongs.
