Hogan hopeful of Royal outing for Byron

Tom Hogan is confident Gordon Lord Byron will be back in action in time for Royal Ascot despite sustaining an injury in Hong Kong.

The multiple Group One winner finished a disappointing seventh in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup at Sha Tin at the weekend but a torn muscle was discovered, explaining his poor run.

It is an injury that he has suffered before and Hogan is hopeful that his star runner will not be out of action for too long as he looks to take his chance at the Royal meeting in June.

He said: “He’s torn a muscle in the sacroiliac area and he’s quite sore at the moment. He did a similar thing in Ascot last June and was back on the racecourse at the end of August. This injury is no worse than that, so he should be OK.

“He’ll need a bit of treatment and then hopefully we’ll get him back on track. It was obvious after going 100 metres he wasn’t right as he wasn’t striding out properly. I suppose if these things are going to happen, this is the best time of year for it as we have plenty of time to get him back.

“He was in tremendous form going into the race on Sunday and we’d love another crack at Ascot with him. Hopefully he should be able to run before that. He could run in something like the Greenlands Stakes at the Curragh, but we’ll see.”