Sovereign and Donnacha O'Brien seen here winning easily at Galway© Photo Healy Racing
Mount Everest bids to extend Aidan O’Brien’s phenomenal record in the Beresford Stakes at Naas on Sunday.
The Ballydoyle maestro has saddled no less than 17 previous winners of the prestigious juvenile contest, including each of the last seven.
Johan Cruyff provided O’Brien with his first Beresford Stakes success in 1996, with the likes of St Nicholas Abbey (2009), Capri (2016) and last year’s victor Saxon Warrior subsequently claiming victory for the all-conquering team.
With Ryan Moore aboard, Mount Everest appears the stable’s number one hope among three runners this year.
A son of Galileo out of the top-class racemare Six Perfections, the youngster made it third time lucky at the Curragh last month.
O’Brien said: “Mount Everest has progressed nicely with racing and we’ve been very happy with him since the Curragh.
“He’s in good form. We think he’s ready to go again.
“He won nicely the last day and is a colt that looks very comfortable over a mile.”
Listowel maiden winner Japan (Seamie Heffernan) and the runaway Galway scorer Sovereign (Donnacha O’Brien) are O’Brien’s other contenders.
Following promising efforts in defeat at Leopardstown and Galway, the Michael O’Callaghan-trained Power Of Now opened his account at the third attempt over this course and distance and returns just 11 days later for this Group Two test.
O’Callaghan said: “Power Of Now has come out of his win at Naas very well and we are really looking forward to running him on Sunday.
“He probably went into that run at Naas needing a bit of work as he had a little break after Galway and looking at him the other morning, I thought he had improved again since Naas, so we are very hopeful of a good run.
“He is proven over the course and distance and the ground is back in his favour, as we feel he wants nice ground.
“There’s still plenty of improvement to come and he’s a horse with a lot of scope. We really like him and fingers crossed he’ll run well.”
Jim Bolger is represented by Guaranteed who was a shade disappointing when only fifth behind O’Brien’s Anthony Van Dyck in the Futurity Stakes on his latest outing.
Adrian Keatley ’s Mackqeez and the Ger Lyons-trained Pythion complete the field.
