Songbird looking to hit the right notes to banish memory of York

The lightly-raced filly had looked a highly-promising prospect until coming unstuck in the Galtres Stakes at York last month.

Nothing came to light after that disappointing effort and Lady Cecil’s charge has been pleasing connections in her work.

“We were disappointed with her at York. We thought she would run much better than that,” said Barry Simpson, racing manager to owner Sir Robert Ogden.

“There’s no explanation why she ran so badly. We’ve just got to put it down to one of those things and tomorrow we will know a bit more. She’s working well at home, we are pleased with how she’s going.

“Mid-season we thought she was a very good filly and we still believe she is, but whether she is as good as we think she is tomorrow will give us more of a clue. Our dilemma at York was whether we thought she was good enough to run in the Yorkshire Oaks or win the Galtres. That was how we were looking at it so we came away from that bitterly disappointed.

“Tomorrow’s going to answer a few more questions.”

Meanwhile, Ed Dunlop is keen to learn more about God Willing’s future aspirations by testing him at Pattern level in today’s Somerville Tattersall Stakes at Newmarket.

Part-owned by the powerful Qatar Racing operation, the juvenile made an excellent start to his career with a winning debut in a Newbury maiden in mid-August, taking gold with a degree of authority.

He remains at seven furlongs but steps up to Group Three class for his latest assignment.

Dunlop said: “It’s a bit of a quicker rise than we would ideally like, I think, but it’s on our doorstep and it’s part of a learning curve with him.

“Like a lot of horses he had a bit of a dirty throat, which held him up, but he is a nice, big colt and anything he can do this year is a bonus.

“We’re not quite sure where we’re going with him.”

God Willing is one of two colts in the eight-strong field defending an unbeaten record, the other being Silent Bullet.

A winner at Haydock in both July and August, his trainer Saeed bin Suroor is similarly keen to see how his charges fares in better company.

Bin Suroor said: “It is so far so good with him, in his last piece of work he worked well and I’m happy with him. He is in good form, this is another step up so we will see how he goes.”

Richard Hannon, who has won three of the last four runnings of this event, is represented by Championship, who has not raced since June.