“So I dare say at this stage we’ll put them on when she runs next Tuesday.”
Dwyer said he had long thought Asfoora would improve with blinkers but had been reluctant to change given how well the flying mare has continued to race.
But he feels now might be the time to try the sprinter in the headgear on race day.
Asfoora stormed to victory in Adelaide first-up this preparation in the RN Irwin Stakes (1100m) in April, before finishing seventh in the G1 Robert Sangster Stakes (1200m) two weeks later in her final start before her trip back to the UK.
“She won well first-up,” Dwyer said.
“I just thought she probably was entitled to go a bit better in Adelaide (in the Sangster), despite the fact it was 1200m and despite the fact she was a bit flat second-up, maybe.
“I just thought she was probably a bit below her best and then she trialled at Flemington before she left and, once again, I just thought she probably didn’t do as much as she should.
“And just her recovery has been a lot better this prep. I think it’s a legacy of her reserving her energy a bit more. She used to get very wound up, whereas now I think she’s just being a bit complacent.
“I think she’s in good order and she’s going well but I just think there’s one little key missing and I’m hoping it’s the blinkers.”
Oisin Murphy, who rode Asfoora during her UK campaign last year, including her Royal Ascot win, was aboard the mare in the gallop over 800m with a workmate.
“We strode off from the five-furlong marker and we used the one-furlong mark as our winning post,” Dwyer said.
“It’s sort of downhill, the Newmarket July Course but the last 200m is pretty stiff uphill and I didn’t think she needed that strong a workout uphill.
“They went evens for the first furlong, Oisin just sat off a workmate there and I didn’t want him doing too much on her, but I said ‘Just make sure you get your head in front on the line’, so he just squeezed up the inside, inside the workmate and put paid to him pretty quickly.
“As he said after the work, he said ‘I had to break her jaw to pull her up, she was charging through the line’.”
Dwyer revealed Murphy was suitably impressed by the way Asfoora is going leading into her Royal Ascot defence.
“Initially he just said ‘She gave me the same feel as last year’ and then I pressed him and he said ‘She’s absolutely flying’ and that she’s going better than last year, he thought,” Dwyer said.
“He’s probably galloped her five times, last year and today, and he said it’s the best she’s ever galloped, so I’m hopeful that he’s a good judge.”
While Dwyer expects she is shaping as one of the main contenders again for the King Charles III Stakes, he also feels Asfoora has some improvement to come in her coat, having arrived in the UK summer later this year as compared to 2024 when she raced at Haydock in late May ahead of the Royal Ascot meeting.
“I still only think she looks probably a seven out of 10, maybe. The work was still fantastic, but I just feel like there’s room for improvement in her looks,” Dwyer said.
He said Asfoora still looked a bit “wintery”, having come from the cool Ballarat weather.
“She’ll catch up and she’ll reacclimatise but it just hasn’t happened yet,” he said.
“It will happen between Ascot and Goodwood, so still looking at those races at Goodwood and York as better chances for her to win races because she will be more acclimatised, but, off what we saw in her gallop this morning, you’d be hard pressed to think she won’t be right there.”
– RACING.COM
