Criterion on course for Juddmonte

Trainer David Hayes is targeting the Juddmonte International at York in August for Australian runner Criterion.

The four-year-old multiple Group One winner in Australia was lined up for the Qatar Sussex Stakes at Goodwood on July 29 following a satisfactory recent fifth-placed finish at the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.

However Hayes is keen to give Criterion a longer break and focus on the event at the Knavesmire on August 19 instead, before the Caulfield Stakes and Cox Plate will be targeted in Australia later in the year.

“We have changed our plan and we are heading towards a race called the Juddmonte International,” Hayes told Sky Racing HQ.

“We just wanted to give the horse a three-week break in the English summer and I found a lovely property at Newmarket just to let him get some sun on his back and have a bit of a freshen-up.

“We can do that better if he wasn’t running in the Sussex and then we have two months to build him up for the Juddmonte and then he has a couple of weeks before he goes into quarantine and he will be here for the Caulfield Stakes/Cox Plate double.

“That is what he has been set for.”