Onwards and upwards for Cosmic Year

Impressive enough in his two starts to prompt thoughts about the 2,000 Guineas, Cosmic Year instead went to Newmarket on Friday and duly stayed on track in the Listed King Charles II Stakes.

Taken from the Thoroughbred Daily News, 3rd May 2025, by Tom Frary:

As he had at Sandown in September, and at Kempton on his return in April, the Harry Charlton-trained son of Kingman and Passage Of Time travelled with purpose throughout the deep seven-furlong test. When asked by Ryan Moore, the 6-4 favourite settled the contest with a bit in hand inside the final furlong and had a length and a half to spare over Marvelman at the line.

Harry Charlton gave the lowdown afterwards: "The race didn't pan out exactly how you would have wanted it to, as the two to his right split right."

He added: "Ryan said he thought they were all going to go that way, but they didn't and he wished he would have followed them as he would have been more impressive if he had that lead to the one pole. He has not handled the dip perfectly, but Ryan liked the way he knuckled down in the final furlong. Barry [Mahon] and Prince Khalid's family have made the right call in that they had three horses that could have run in the 2000 Guineas - Ryan said he could see why I didn't want to come here for a quick ground 2000 Guineas."

"Oisin had said this before and Ryan said he would be quite comfortable trying the quicker ground when meeting the rising ground at Ascot," he added. "We have come here with the view to going to the Irish Guineas. I think the plan will still be to go to Ireland and I think that will suit better. You get a good pace there and you can ride them a bit differently. Whether that leads on to a St James's Palace Stakes, I think that will depend on results, and results of the 2000 Guineas tomorrow."