Rain – or lack of it – remains a pain for connections of Anmaat
Having since sidestepped the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown, trainer Owen Burrows and owners Shadwell are keen to run him at York, but underfoot conditions could again scupper his participation.
'We're desperate to run him, but he won't be there if it's very fast ground and it doesn't sound like there's a lot of rain around,' said Shadwell's racing manager Angus Gold.
'I was going to talk to Owen before confirmations. He says the horse is bouncing and he really wants to run him, but we've got the autumn ahead of us and at some stage the weather must turn.
'I fear we may not be there next week.'
Should Anmaat miss York, his next option appears to be be the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown next month ahead of the planned defence of his Champion Stakes crown at Ascot in October.
Definitely on course for York, however, is Delacroix, with Aidan O'Brien still gobsmacked by the manner of his Sandown victory, where he reeled in Ombudsman from a seemingly impossible position.
'It was the most amazing thing I ever saw, I think. He could not win at the two-furlong marker, everything had gone sideways on him, and when Ryan (Moore) got him out he still had too much ground to make up,' the Ballydoyle trainer told Sky Sports Racing.
'I think his times suggested no horse has ever covered the last two furlongs in an Eclipse the way he did and he won with his ears pricked.
'In the Derby he got taken out at the top of the hill and Ryan said it was race over straight away. We found it very easy to put a line through it, we thought a mile and a quarter was his distance and he'd two lovely runs before the Derby over a mile and a quarter.'
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