Triumph at Curragh increases the options for Mission

The five-year-old brother to the peerless Frankel made every yard of the running in the Group One to defeat Aidan O’Brien’s Magician by a length-and-a-quarter.

His Curragh triumph under in-form jockey James Doyle put the seal on a golden start to the season for Prince Khalid Abdullah’s horse who had previously won back-to-back Group Threes at Sandown and at Chester.

Lady Jane Cecil, who was recording a first Group One victory since the death of her husband Sir Henry, reported Noble Mission in fine fettle, with the Eclipse on July 5 a possible objective.

She said: “It means so much on a number of levels. Firstly, I am especially pleased for Prince Khalid, whose decision to keep the horse in training as a five-year-old has been rewarded.

“I am delighted, too, for my assistant George Scott and all the staff at Warren Place. The yard has been buzzing.

“Noble Mission seems to have taken his race very well. While we have not decided on his next race, he has certainly earned the right to continue at Group One level.

“He is already entered in the Eclipse and will be put in other top-class races at a mile and a quarter.”

Malton trainer Brian Ellison’s Top Notch Tonto will step up to 10 furlongs when lining up in the Group Three Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown tomorrow night. Soft ground should play to the strengths of the white-faced horse, who was second in last season’s Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

IAN Balding’s top class sprinter Lochsong, dual winner of the Prix de l’Abbaye and York’s 1993 Nunthorpe Stakes under Frankie Dettori, has died at the age of 26.