Ground key to Rogue Millennium’s summer plans

Clover eager for Group race glory, but needs correct conditions.

Tom Clover will bid to land a Group race with Rogue Millennium this summer, providing there is some ease in the ground.

The daughter of Dubawi stayed on well under Jack Mitchell to finish third to India in the Group Three Prix Allez France at ParisLongchamp at the end of last month, having opened her four-year-old season with a runner-up effort to Foxes Tales in the Listed Magnolia Stakes at Kempton

Last season’s Lingfield Oaks Trial heroine may now be aimed at York’s Group Two Al Basti Equiworld Dubai Middleton Fillies’ Stakes on Thursday week, according to her Newmarket handler.

Clover said: “She is a lovely filly. She has done well physically from three to four and it is nice she has got two more nice bits of black type next to her name this year already.

“I think she just relished that slightly easier ground at Longchamp. We had a very dry summer last year and it was very difficult to find suitable ground for her.

“But she has come out of it well and I suppose the last couple of years in the Middleton there have been five, six or seven runners.

“The race is an early closer, but we will have to have a look. I don’t know whether we will go there. There is also the possibility of a Group Two at Saint-Cloud.

“I think she appreciates some cut underfoot and we are a little dependent there. She is in good form and please God she can bag a Group race this year, which would be amazing. She is a lovely horse to have around.”

Clover will have plenty of juvenile talent within his ranks this season, although he has high hopes for three-year-olds Rogue Lightning and Rogue Spirit.

The former won a six-furlong Newmarket novice on debut last June and opened this term with a fair third in a five-and-a-half-furlong Listed contest at Chantilly in March, while Rogue Spirit won twice last season in a busy campaign.

“We are in a slightly rebuilding year. We have some lovely two-year-olds coming through and over half the horses are two-year-olds,” explained Clover. “A few horses ended up moving on last year, which is part and parcel of our game, sadly.

“Rogue Lightning looks a nice prospect. He ran a nice race at Chantilly in a Listed race to be third, when they went very hard and he didn’t quite get home.

“And Rogue Spirit’s form with Cold Case, who won at Ascot on Wednesday, looks very strong. Likewise, the form with Al Dasim, whom he beat at Haydock in September, looks solid, as that one did well in Dubai over the winter.”

He added: “We have a few maidens still to run. Rogue Sea, another three-year-old, won quite nicely a couple of weeks ago at Yarmouth on debut.

“Rogue Lion has quite a nice pedigree and ran quite a nice race on debut when fourth at Nottingham.

“Hopefully he is one to pick up nice races through the summer and hopefully will make up into a nice four-year-old as well. He’s going nicely and he’s a bonny horse – I like him.”

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