Fine ‘N Dandy to blaze the trail in Coral Dragon Stakes

Fine ‘N Dandy trounced his field at Chester in good to soft going last month, making all of the running under jockey Richard Kingscote. Tom Dascombe’s colt holds an ambitious entry in the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes and is strongly fancied to follow up.

Kingscote is enjoying a good season with high profile victories at Epsom on Pasaka Boy and Royal Ascot aboard Annecdote. Fine ‘N Dandy may not have things all his own way as he faces a couple of smart rivals in Ambiance and Survived.

Ambiance was sent off at 40-1 for the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot but almost belied those odds when finishing close up behind No Nay Never.

Jockey Martin Harley had him in the front rank throughout and it was only in the closing stages that he weakened out of contention. He had previously won a decent maiden at Ripon and trainer Mick Channon singled him out earlier in the year as his outstanding sharp two-year-old.

The subsequent defeat of Coach House in Ireland did little for the Norfolk Stakes form but there is no such question mark over the form of William Haggas’s filly Survived.

She has a very similar profile to Ambiance in that she won her maiden before finishing just out of the money at the Royal meeting. She finished sixth behind Rizeena in the Queen Mary Stakes and that form is starting to look particularly smart.

Fig Roll (4th) and Bye Bye Birdie (12th) have both come out and won decent races whilst Ventura Mist (8th) finished second to the former at Newmarket. The daughter of Kyllachy was second to Wind Fire here on her debut and that experience will hold her in good stead.

Richard Hannon can never be overlooked in these two-year-old events and he saddles Langavat, an all-the-way winner at Beverley last month. The colt had previously swerved and unseated his rider at Goodwood but showed no signs of deviating off a true line last time.

Windsor winner Majestic Alexander and Iseemist, well beaten behind Kiyoshi at Ascot, make up the field of six.