Clive Cox ready to go up in trip with My Dream Boat

My Dream Boat could have the King George on his schedule this summer. Picture: Racingfotos.com

My Dream Boat is to be stepped up in distance after he finished a staying-on third behind Ulysses in the Gordon Richards Stakes at Sandown on Friday.

It means the Clive Cox-trained QIPCO British Champions Series star is unlikely to defend his crown in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot on June 21 but does raise the tantalising prospect of him instead contesting the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on July 29.

Clive Cox, his trainer, has pencilled in My Dream Boat for the Group Three Al Rayyan Aston Park Stakes over a mile and a half at Newbury on May 20. That is one of the supporting races on a card that features the Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes.

“I was very satisfied with his run at Sandown as a seasonal debut,” Cox said on Sunday. “I was pleased with the way he finished the race and it does confirm what we were talking about stepping him up to a mile and a half. That will be the plan with for him now.

“We’ve been so dry at home he has missed the last three weeks preparation on the grass, but he was not beaten from a fitness point of view, there was just a lack of early pace.

“He is another year older and the extra couple of furlongs will help. At Royal Ascot we will consider the mile-and-a-half race [the Hardwicke Stakes] rather than the mile-and-a-quarter race [Prince of Wales’s Stakes] he won last year.”

Meanwhile, the Sir Michael Stoute-trained Ulysses has a range of options after his Sandown success, including two Series races – the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Coral-Eclipse. The latter is back at Sandown on July 8.

Alan Cooper, racing manager to winning owners Flaxman Stables Ireland Ltd, said: “The thought at the moment is to stay at 10 furlongs, rather than 12. We’ll see what Sir Michael would like to do, as he is the boss.”