Mirage Dancer will miss next month’s Investec Derby although a run at Royal Ascot could still be on the cards.
The son of Frankel secured an impressive victory at Doncaster in his only run as a juvenile last year and he followed that impressive performance up with a fourth-place finish in this month’s Homeserve Dee Stakes at Chester.
The Derby at Epsom had been tipped to be the three-year-old’s next port of call, but Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager to owner Khalid Abdullah, has dismissed those claims, insisting that they plan to bide their time with the bay colt.
“He is fine and it is not that he has been working badly, but going into the Derby you want all the right bells to be ringing. He is still a work in progress and we still hope he will be top class,” Grimthorpe said.
“I think with a horse like this, you have just got to give them a little bit of space to grow up and mature.”
Grimthorpe did however refuse to rule Mirage Dancer out of a possible run in the King Edward VII Stakes at Ascot on June 17.
He added: “It is not impossible he will go to the King Edward VII at Royal Ascot.”
