RICHARD Hannon has plenty to look forward to in the autumn, particularly with his juveniles, and Threat (Pat Dobbs) supplemented his success in the Gimcrack Stakes by winning the Champagne Stakes by a neck and three-parts of a length from Royal Crusade (Charlie Appleby/William Buick) and Juan Elcano (Kevin Ryan/Andrea Atzeni).

The distances involved do not make it easy to view the form particularly positively, but the winner made a decisive move to get to the front and seemed to idle when clear, and is better than the bare margin.

Given how he travelled, it would appear that a return to six furlongs could well be on the cards, and with Pinatubo pencilled in for the Dewhurst, it may be that Threat and the stable’s other leading two-year-old, Mums Tipple, could clash in the Middle Park Stakes, something Hannon was certainly not ruling out, pointing out that the pair have different owners, and so wouldn’t necessarily be kept apart.

Decision

Chris Richardson, MD of Cheveley Park, suggested that, while no decision had been made, the spectre of Pinatubo made the Middle Park a more attractive option:

“Mr and Mrs Thompson will make the decision on where he goes. We don’t want to be avoiding one horse as a lot can happen between now and then, but at this point I think we will probably be avoiding that, having watched him sluice up in Ireland. We will not make any rash decision and we’ll just enjoy the moment.

“We don’t want to run away from one horse as they can have bad days, but I guess we will just have to watch this space and see how things develop.”