WHILE Charlie Hills was celebrating the best day of his training career, John Gosden was left to mull over the defeat of his outstanding juveniles Too Darn Hot at the Curragh and Calyx, who was turned over at prohibitively short odds in the Group 2 Armstrong Aggregates Sandy Lane Stakes.

Calyx, sidelined by injury after winning the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot, made an impressive return when landing the Group 3 Pavilion Stakes at Ascot on the first day of May, but he looked unwilling to let himself down fully at Haydock, with his trainer citing the ground as a possible reason.

He did take a bump out of the stalls, but that was largely incidental, and the worrying aspect of his performance was that he drifted left when asked for an effort having travelled well, and it’s possible that something physical is bothering him based on his awkward demeanour.

Of course, he was forced to challenge on the inside of the straight track, and it is possible to draw a parallel to the fact that both Kachy and Caspian Prince were left for dead having raced on the same part of the track in the Temple Stakes earlier on the card.

Questions

This clearly leaves questions over whether Calyx can win the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot, and his price drifted dramatically after the race. It would take a brave man to back him confidently after this performance, but a braver one to suggest that John Gosden will not find the key to him.

The easy winner of the Sandy Lane in the end was the Jaber Abdullah-owned Hello Youmzain, for Kevin Ryan and jockey Kevin Stott, and while the defeat of Calyx at 2/13 was the main talking point, the wide-margin winner showed that he wouldn’t have rolled over easily had the favourite given his running. This represented a second Group 2 success for the son of Kodiac after the Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte in October.

It’s easy to forgive his defeat in the Greenham in retrospect as he looks a sprinter, and he was too fresh to see out the seven-furlong trip at Newbury.

The consensus is that he got lucky here, but it would be folly to ignore him in the Commonwealth Cup.