Kingsbarns© Photo Healy Racing
Kingsbarns makes his latest return from the wilderness at the Curragh in a five-runner Kilfrush Stud Royal Whip Stakes.
A Group One winner as a two-year-old and regarded as a Classic hope, Aidan O'Brien's colt was restricted to just a couple of autumn starts last year, but finished a good third to Olympic Glory in the QEII.
O'Brien has managed only one outing with Kingsbarns this season, when he was third to John Oxx's Qewy in an early-April Listed event at Leopardstown.
While accompanied by stablemate Hall Of Mirrors Kingsbarns' most serious rival looks to be the Dermot Weld-trained Edelmira, a cosy winner of the Give Thanks at Cork last time. Parish Hall arrives here after success in another course and distance Group Three last month, while Ger Lyons feels everything might finally fall right for Magnolia Beach
The County Meath trainer said: "I've always thought he wants a mile and two, top of the ground and blinkers.
"He was unlucky not to have won two premier handicaps this year and I've always thought he was a stakes horse even though this is throwing him in at the deeper end.
"He will run on Champions Weekend and he will run at Dundalk in October in the Group Three.
"I think he is going to be a cracking four-year-old and like his half-brother (Grandeur), get better with age.
"In another year he probably would have won an Ulster Derby and he was unlucky the last day at Leopardstown when he didn't get the run up the rail when he went for home.
"He is a horse I like a lot and this is in at the deep end, but I'd rather run him in a five-horse Group Three than a 25-runner premier handicap!"
