There have been many great performances for flat horse racing fans to admire this season, particularly those from Frankel, the 1000 Guineas winner Blue Bunting and King George winner, Nathaniel. All three look set to go on to bigger and better things but one other horse who was expected to be up there with them is the Aidan O’Brien trained Await The Dawn, that was of course until he flopped when the odds favourite to win the Group One Juddmonte International Stakes at the York Ebor meeting last week.

Prior to that race, Await The Dawn had been almost gone "under the radar" this season, particularly after landing the Group Two Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, a performance that was simply breathtaking with trainer O’Brien and jockey Ryan Moore both suggesting that he could be a Breeder’s Cup Classic winner. O’Brien believed that the four year old Colt was one of his stable stars with many suggesting he was favoured over the highly thought of So You Think, winner of the Group One Eclipse Stakes in July.

He was made the favourite to win the International Stakes based on his two wins as a three year old and two wins this season together with his growing reputation. The International did turn out to be a great race but the first two home Twice Over and Midday were both from the stable of Sir Henry Cecil and they finished five lengths clear of Await The Dawn who was back in third place.

After the race,  O’Brien confirmed that he was perplexed at Await The Dawn's run, stating that he thought it was his lack of a recent run that cost the son of Giants Causeway the race but since then it was discovered that he was suffering with a high temperature and was quite poorly by the time he had got back home.

O’Brien could have possibly mentioned as well that Await The Dawn was running in a Group One race for the first time and he was up against two multiple Group One winners in Twice Over and Midday. No matter how impressive his Hardwicke Stakes victory had been he was clearly up against top opposition.

The word from Ballydoyle now is that the four year old is over his problems and will be back in training over the next few days. The Breeders Cup Classic. remains his target, for which he is now the 10/1 second favourite and will have one more run before going over to the States.

The current favourite for the feature race of the two day Breeders Cup meeting is the big improving Bob Baffert trained Coil, son of the multiple Grade One and 2001 Belmont Stakes winner, Point Given. Coil was last seen winning the prestigious Grade One Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park defeating a high class field in the progress which included this year’s winner of the Preakness Stakes, Shackleford and is the pick of American runners to land the $5 million race.

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