The five-year-old saw his rapid improvement briefly come to a halt in Haydock’s Temple Stakes when he finished fifth behind Ed Walker’s mare Mgheera.
However, Goldie believes a lack of early cover which forced him to run too keen, and then meeting trouble in running when he eventually did get in behind horses are enough of an excuse to believe he could have made up the two and three-quarter lengths that he was beaten.
“He’s still on target for Ascot,” said Goldie. “I think we needed a bit of cover and we didn’t get it straight away, and then when he did get it he (Paul Mulrennan) couldn’t get out when he needed to.
“He’s one of these horses, we discovered when he won the Portland, that he is probably 10lb better if you can switch him off so you need to get cover.
“He likes getting towed along but mentally he then switches off. If you don’t get proper cover, mentally he doesn’t switch off and he ends up running with the choke open and that is exactly what happened.
“We were disappointed, obviously, but it wasn’t that bad a run and we’ve still got a horse with a big engine and we’ll try again another day.
“Look at last year’s Derby winner (City Of Troy), when he ran in the Guineas Aidan O’Brien said he lost his race in the stalls because he got a bit upset and it turned out he was right – then he went to America and it went wrong again.
“They are highly-tuned animals and if they don’t get into an absolute rhythm they rarely win. You can’t get it right all the time.
“He’s good enough for that level, I’ve never doubted that, and there’s usually one or two at Ascot who go blasting off and if you are drawn next to them that helps.”
