The prospects of Michael Kinane getting the green light to ride Giant's Causeway in tomorrow's Eclipse Stakes are getting increasingly better, but the champion jockey still faces a crucial medical check-up today to get the go ahead.
Giant's Causeway faces a first attempt at 10 furlongs against just six opponents in the Eclipse and his trainer Aidan O'Brien is certainly planning on the basis that Kinane, who injured his back at the Curragh last weekend, will ride.
"I've been told that Mick will be able to ride at Sandown," the Ballydoyle trainer said yesterday. "Giant's Causeway has done it over a mile but you never know for sure if they will stay until they actually do it. But we're hopeful he will and the forecast is for good ground, which will help."
Kinane suffered muscular spasms in his lower back after riding Spinning Top in the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh last Saturday and has received physio treatment since. He visited a consultant on Wednesday but still has to pass the Turf Club medical officer Dr Walter Halley.
Halley said yesterday: "It's looking good at the moment. The decision will be made by both of us together."
The next Irish classic is the Oaks on Sunday week, for which the Michael Stoute-trained filly Petrushka is an intended runner.
Another intended Irish Oaks runner from Newmarket is Jeremy Noseda's Kalypso Katie, who finished runner-up to Love Divine at Epsom. It has been confirmed that the latter will miss the Curragh due to illness.
The three-day Bellewstown meet winds up with another eight-race card, which can prove a good one indeed for the Co Westmeath-based trainer John Bowles. Bowles gives one of his stable stalwarts, Willyever, a second start in four days in the mile handicap and this time the nod can go the six-year-old's way.
It was only by the shortest of short heads that Evrobi got the verdict over Willyever at Cork on Tuesday evening and the extra furlong of tonight's race could favour of John Murtagh's mount.
The champion jumps rider, Barry Geraghty, takes the ride on the Bowles-trained Drewstown Lady in the first division of the handicap hurdle, and while she does have to hump 12st, Drewstown Lady did win under 11-5 at Dundalk and could just be up to the task.
