Brendan Brackan leads the field into the straight in the Topaz Mile at Galway© Photo Healy Racing
Ger Lyons is hopeful Brendan Brackan can confirm his superiority over six rivals in the Listed corkracecourse.ie Navigation Stakes at Cork.
Winner of the lucrative Topaz Mile at the Galway Festival in July, the four-year-old was unable to reproduce that effort at Glorious Goodwood just a few days later, but after being given plenty of time to get over those exertions, he looked a class act in claiming the Group Three Solonaway Stakes at the Curragh last month.
Although he has to concede at least 5lb to each of his opponents, Brendan Brackan is 12lb clear on official ratings.
The trainer said: "He's in good order. I've been happy with him since his run the last day, he's the best horse in the race so we'll see what happens. We have no major plans for him. We had been thinking about going to Hong Kong, but that's up in the air as he's yet to be invited. We'll think about Dubai when Dubai comes around."
Trainer Tommy Stack is double-handed, saddling Beacon Lodge and Croi An Or The former returned from a spell in the doldrums to make a winning Irish debut at Tipperary earlier this month, while Croi An Or has not been sighted since finishing fourth in a Listed race at Killarney in August.
Stack's son and assistant, Fozzy, said: "Beacon Lodge was a smart horse in the past but was beaten in a claimer on his last run in England, so I didn't know what to expect from him the last day. He won well on the day, but before that he'd lost his way. Whether he can go on again remains to be seen.
"The other horse ran a nice race in Killarney the last day and hopefully he'll run well again."
Trainer Johnny Murtagh is represented by recent Listowel scorer Rich Coast with Niall McCullagh taking over in the saddle as Murtagh is in action at Ascot.
The field is completed by Dermot Weld's Tandem Aidan O'Brien's Line Drummer and the Charles O'Brien-trained Pop Art
