CLASSIC dreams will be alive and well before racing at Leopardstown on Sunday and the hope for all is that they are still alive at the close of play.

We have the usuals here - Aidan O’Brien and Co - but as always on this card, the smaller yards are in there pitching. Jack Davison, Andy Oliver, Joe Murphy and Natalia Lupini will all be hoping their star three-year-olds can deliver on all known potential.

We start with the Group 3 Ballylinch Stud Red Rocks Stakes (2.20) which could see Take Me To Church go off favourite for Davison, taking on an Aidan O’Brien-trained trio of Battle Cry, Samuel Colt and The Liffey, and the Joseph O’Brien-trained Atlantic Coast.

The son of Churchill was an impressive winner of the Madrid Handicap at Naas and his connections decided to supplement for the Irish Guineas this week off the back of that performance.

“It’s a big day for the yard,” Davison told The Irish Field. “The horse was very impressive in the Madrid so we’re looking forward to seeing him in a Guineas trial.

“I think it looks like an open enough contest. There are some good horses there with good two-year-old form but it’s going to be very testing conditions at Leopardstown and we tick a lot of boxes. I wouldn’t swap him.”

Johnny Feane, Sheila Lavery and Adrian Keatley have all done it for the smaller yards in the fillies’ equivalent race, the Group 3 Ballylinch Stud Priory Belle Stakes (2.55), in recent years, and Natalia Lupini will be hoping to join that list with Kitty Rose.

The daughter of Invincible Army won the Ingabelle Stakes over this course and distance at the Irish Champions Festival and starts her classic year by carrying the colours of her new owner Tim Porter.

“We’re looking to getting her started for the new owners especially,” Lupini told The Irish Field.

“She has been working well at home, we’ve been happy with her. The ground could be a little bit better for her but she handled it okay over a mile at the Curragh. This is going to be very testing but we’re hoping over seven furlongs she might get through it okay.

“Seamie [Heffernan] rides her again and he was very happy with her when he rode her the other day. We think she has strengthened up over the winter and has improved in her work at home. She’s conditioned well and physically she looks stronger than last year.

“We will get over Sunday first but all being well, we’re looking at Newmarket for her and possibly the Irish Guineas as well.”

Kitty Rose takes on 11 in the seven-furlong contest, which include Paddy Twomey’s A Lilac Rolla, who took the scalp of Opera Singer on her second start.

Twomey, who has started his season in typical clinical fashion with three winners from seven runners, also starts off his Beresford Stakes winner Deepone in the P.W. McGrath Ballysax Stakes (3.30). Due to that Group 2 victory, he must concede 5lb to each of his four rivals here which include the Aidan O’Brien-trained Illinois and Ocean Of Dreams.