Having been sidelined through injury, Lord d’Or made an excellent return to action in a strong Class 2 novice on the final day of York’s Dante Festival on Friday 15th May.
As could be expected after an absence, he raced a little keenly through the early stages before settling nicely in behind under P J McDonald. Although the gallop was relatively steady early on, the pace lifted turning for home and Lord d’Or was nudged along two furlongs out. Once asked for his effort, he stayed on strongly to take second, making good headway inside the final furlong to pass all but the well-backed favourite Portcullis, going down by just three-quarters of a length.
After the race, jockey P J McDonald gave us his verdict on the performance:
“He has run a beautiful race. I really liked him, he has a great attitude. He jumped nicely but was a bit keen so I took him back and he dropped his head and got in a lovely rhythm. We followed the winner the whole way, if we were race fit I could have switched him a bit earlier but I didn’t want to switch him out and then get tired at the furlong pole. I wanted to make sure that when we switched out we were going well enough that we would hit the line galloping. I couldn’t pull him up which is always a good sign, he will take a big step forward from this and shouldn’t get beat the next day.”
This was a really pleasing return to the racecourse from Lord d’Or, who took a significant step forward from his debut at Kempton and looks a very exciting prospect with a bright future ahead. He will now be given time to recover from his first run in over 280 days, before attention turns to his next appearance, where he could prove difficult to beat. The way he finished off his race over seven furlongs suggested that a step up to a mile should pose no problems and could well bring about further improvement.
