Noon Star

It's May, it's sunny, it's the Dante meeting in the county of England known as "God's Own Country" and we have a Sir Michael Stoute Derby plunge horse about to appear. While the kingpin of Newmarket is still prepared to train racehorses, there will continue to be moments like these and this time the bearer of the Freemason Lodge standard is the unbeaten 'TDN Rising Star' Desert Crown (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) in Thursday's G2 Al Basti Equiworld Dubai Dante S. Bred at Gary Robinson's Teversham-based Strawberry Fields Stud, Saeed Suhail's...

   It's Thursday at Royal Ascot, which can only mean that it's time for Stradivarius (Ire) (Sea the Stars {Ire}) with the Gosden titan now bidding for a record-equalling fourth renewal of the G1 Gold Cup. As Yeats (Ire) did before him, Bjorn Nielsen's stayer supreme just keeps coming back to deal with the latest set of opponents looking to stretch him. In his inaugural triumph in 2018, it was the French doyen Vazirabad (Fr) (Manduro {Ger}) who felt his breeze as Frankie's favourite winning post loomed, while a year...

Juddmonte homebred Noon Star (Galileo {Ire}) has had a "temporary setback" and will not run in the G1 Cazoo Oaks on the first day of the Cazoo Derby Festival, Juddmonte Racing Manager Teddy Grimthorpe announced. Third on debut at Salisbury on Sept. 3, the bay graduated in a Nottingham maiden on Oct. 14 and was put away for the season. She made her 3-year-old bow with a 2 1/2-length win at Wetherby on Apr. 25 and was last seen finishing second in the G3 Tattersalls Musidora S. at York on...

Group 1 winner Gear Up (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) is still pointing to the G1 Cazoo Derby over 1 1/2 miles on June 5, according to connections. The colt, who won the G1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud over 10 furlongs last term, ran fifth in the G2 Al Basti Equiworld Dubai Dante S. at York in mid-May. The bay also scooped the G3 Tattersalls Acomb S. at two. Charlie Johnston, son and assistant trainer to father Mark, said, "Gear Up is still Epsom bound. Although he is a 33-1 shot, I think,...

Wetherby is an unlikely place to unearth a TDN Rising Star, but the Yorkshire venue more accustomed to hosting jumps meetings acted as the stage for the re-entry of a potential top-class filly on Sunday as Juddmonte's regally-bred Noon Star (Galileo {Ire}) took the opening 10-furlong Racingtv.com Fillies' Novice S. Last seen winning over an extended mile at Nottingham in October, the Sir Michael Stoute-trained daughter of the celebrated Midday (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}) and full-sister to the G3 Sandown Classic Trial winner Midterm (GB) was under a seven-pound penalty...