Asfoora might not have secured the fairytale farewell from the Royal Ascot meeting at which she made her name, but trainer Henry Dwyer saw enough in last week’s King Charles III Stakes to extend her career.
Whether she gets a crack at a fourth European Group 1 success, though, will be up to her.
Plans are for the rising eight-year-old to return to Australia for the Southern Hemisphere breeding season with a departure date to be determined by how she performs in up to two potential runs next month.
“She’s going into quarantine on the 31st of July to get back here for the breeding season at the start of September,” Dwyer said.
“We can run her at Sandown on Saturday week in the five-furlong (1015m) Group 3 sprint there, the Sprint Stakes, which will be two-and-a-half weeks between runs and then there’s the Group 2 King George Stakes at Goodwood the day she’s supposed to go into quarantine.
“They’re two options for her before she comes home. But if she was to win one or both of them, which we’d be a chance to, then the Nunthorpe is three weeks later and the owners might be persuaded to put off getting her served by a month.”
The Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes (1005m), which Asfoora won last year, will be run at York on August 21.
Dwyer is confident Asfoora will give her owners something to think about with a peak performance looming after her two-length seventh in last week’s King Charles III Stakes (1000m), a race she won on 2024.
“I think she ran near enough her best, she just blew out that last little bit,” Dwyer said.
“Maybe off the back of two very soft runs she still needed it a bit the other day.
“She had a big blow, but at least she tried and I feel like her next run will be her peak run.”
Dwyer arrived back in Australia on Tuesday morning and will be back at Caulfield this Saturday, with Salsa Fellow to run in the Sportsbet More Places BM84 Handicap (1100m) that rounds out the card.
The four-year-old Blue Point gelding will be lining up for the ninth run of a campaign that started at Flemington on New Year’s Eve and featured back-to-back wins at Terang and Warrnambool before a last-start fourth placing in the Golden Topaz (1200m) at Swan Hill.
“He’s had a long busy preparation, so he’s nearer the end of it than the start of it, but he seems pretty good,” Dwyer said.
“He’s getting up in the ratings now but he’s probably still got another couple of wins in him so we’ll just try and make the most of the off-season before the spring starts with him.”
