Murray plotting path to Royal Ascot with Arizona Blaze

Adrian Murray is keen to give Arizona Blaze more match practice ahead of a planned appearance at Royal Ascot following his impressive debut at the Curragh earlier this month.

The County Westmeath trainer saddled subsequent Group One winner Bucanero Fuerte to claim the first two-year-old race of the Irish turf campaign last year and repeated the feat with this son of first-season sire Sergei Prokofiev.

While Arizona Blaze’s victory was achieved in testing conditions, Murray would not be afraid to run him on a quicker surface as he looks to continue his education ahead of the showpiece meeting in Berkshire in mid-June.

“We were thrilled with the run and he’s come out of the race great. He was doing his best work at the finish on very testing ground and he looks like a decent horse,” said the trainer.

“He’ll probably have one more run and then we’ll go to Royal Ascot, all being well. We’ve no plans yet as we want to give him a bit of time to get over that first run.

“It’s hard to say what sort of ground he wants, he handled that heavy ground very well, but you’d be looking forward to getting him on a bit of better ground.”