Jane Chapple-Hyam is planning an audacious smash-and-grab raid for Duke Of Marmalade’s crown with Traffic Guard in the Tattersalls Millions Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown on Saturday week.

The Lambourn trainer believes the four-year-old colt is no forlorn hope in the Group One over a mile and a quarter on a formline through Phoenix Tower.

Traffic Guard was only beaten a head in the Earl of Sefton Stakes at Newmarket in April by Henry Cecil’s charge, who was second to Aidan O’Brien’s superstar in last weekend’s Juddmonte International.

Chapple-Hyam’s runner then made an unsuccessful bid for the Singapore Airlines International Cup in May, but recovered from that long trip when runner-up to Stotsfold at Windsor in his first race for three months.

“It’s going to be hard. He was probably only 70% fit when he ran at Windsor because he had been off the track for nearly 100 days,” she said.

“That has actually put him right for Ireland but I don’t know if he can be in the shake-up. We’ll find out how good he is, for sure.

“I’d like to take the Duke’s crown. If you go back through the form with Phoenix Tower in the Earl of Sefton I might be in with a squeak of getting that crown off the Duke.

“He’ll probably be a 100-1 shot and people will laugh, but if you go back through the formbook I believe he’s no more than a 25-1 shot and will take my chance.”
(Source: Sporting Life)