Varian delighted as superstar on course for autumn showpiece

Roger Varian, trainer of Postponed
I’ve been delighted with him since his win at York and he seems to have come out of the race very well. He did an easy piece of work last Saturday and moved very well. God willing and with a clear run he’s bang on course for the Arc, which has been his main second-half-of-the-season objective.

Dermot Weld, trainer of Harzand and Fascinating Rock
The intention is to run both colts in the Irish Champion Stakes on Saturday, but it will depend on what the weather does. We’ll make further plans after the weekend.

Sylvain Vidal, racing manager to Gerard Augustin-Normand, co-owner of La Cressonniere and Almanzor
Everything has gone fine since the Prix de la Nonette, which was not a hard race for La Cressonniere and more like a piece of morning work. She’s come out of the race well and October 2 remains the plan. The Arc isn’t currently in our thinking for Almanzor. I think Jean-Claude Rouget would prefer to keep him over 2,000 metres [a mile and a quarter], while the owners already have an Arc horse together in La Cressonniere. Almanzor runs in the Irish Champion Stakes and we’ll see what happens there.

Aidan O’Brien, trainer of Minding, Found, Order Of St George, US Army Ranger and Seventh Heaven
This weekend will tell us a lot about the Arc. I’d imagine we’ll map out the different routes each will take after they run this weekend. The plan for Found was always to run in the Irish Champion Stakes and then head on to the Arc and we’ll try to stick to that plan. We’ve always thought Order Of St George had enough pace to drop back to a mile and a half, so it’s an option for him as well. There are others in the mix too, but we’ll be a lot wiser after we see how things unfold at the weekend.