Palace Pier Favourite for Lockinge Stakes

As the major UK racing season starts to build, last year's European Champion 3YO Male, Palace Pier (Kingman-Beach Frolic, by Nayef), is the market leader for Saturday's Gr1 Lockinge Stakes to be held at Newbury over a mile, reports racingpost.com. "Palace Pier was cut to 7-4 following his winning reappearance at Sandown last month but that proved far too big for punters and he's been steadily backed since then. He'll be sent off a very warm favourite on Saturday," said betting company Coral's David Stevens. The John and Thady Gosden-trained Palace Pier has won six of his seven starts including the Gr1 Prix Jacques Le Marois and the Gr1 St James's Palace Stakes. Current second favourite at 11-2 is Aiden O'Brien-trained Lope Y Fernandez (Lope de Vega-Black Dahlia, by Dansili), while the five other Ballydoyle early nominations for the race also weren't confirmed for the final field. The most notable absence is Order of Australia (Australia-Senta's Dream, by Danehill) who was the 5-1 second favourite before confirmation stage. Clerk of the course Keith Ottesen said, "We're good to soft at the moment... Newbury can dry quite quickly and I hope it balances out through the week so we'll be around the easy side of good or good to soft."