Strong Suit tomorrow in the 2.30
I have been taking the 4/1 on betfair for him just to place.
Strong Suit gives 5lbs away to most of the field which includes Oracle 3rd in the Irish 2000 Guineas, Havane Smoker 2nd in the French 2000 Guineas, UAE 2000 Guineas winner Splash Point plus two good home horses in Codemaster and Fury.
Strong Suit won the Coventry here last year before not running as expect on soft ground, so he really needs a dry 24 hours at Ascot, was expected to give a half fit Frankel a race over 7f in the Greenham and would at least of been expected to give a battle for 2nd with the now highly rated Excelebration.
Hannon said: "I know that Strong Suit is a good horse, so something had to be wrong for him to run so badly at Newbury. The initial scope showed nothing abnormal but we then checked his wind and found that he could barely breathe.
"There are various degrees of wind operations, but Strong Suit will have the 'Full Monty' and, hopefully, he will bounce back as good as new."
Richard Hannon Trainer
Breathing operations have been no barrierto success on the Flat in the past few seasons with the likes of Sixties Icon and Equiano going on to success after undergoing surgery and Strong Suit is likely to return later in the summer with Royal Ascot ruled out entirely by Hannon.
"He will definitely be off games for two months, so there is no chance of getting him back in time for Royal Ascot," said Hannon on his website. "Julie Wood has told me to give the horse all the time that he needs and, with luck, he'll be back on the tracksome time in July."
He added: "Richard (Hughes) is adamant that we have not seen the real Strong Suit since he won the Coventry Stakes so impressively at Royal Ascot last year, so maybe the problem has been there some time and gradually got worse, but at least now we know there was a reason for his below-par performance at Newbury."
Interesting that they ruled Royal Ascot out in April so think its fair to think he's been showing so good work at home to make this race.
