Hurricane Lane has it all to prove in Group 2 Jockey Club Stakes after subpar reappearance

When Hurricane Lane was three, he was the type of horse you could set your watch by and demonstrated a tremendous amount of ability to go with such admirable consistency.

His five wins that season included victories in the Irish Derby, Grand Prix de Paris and St Leger, while his only defeats were thirds in the Derby and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

Last year, he was expected to be a leading middle-distance force, but an appearance on quick ground in the Hardwicke when he was third is where things might have started to unravel.

He was an unsatisfactory eighth after that in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud and trainer Charlie Appleby, speaking last month, said: "The only reason this horse has stayed in training is to work back from an Arc."

That looked a million miles away when Hurricane Lane produced an ugly effort in Newbury's John Porter in conditions that were expected to suit, only for Appleby's representative on the day to tell stewards the colt was "unsuited by the [soft] going" and "would prefer a quicker surface".

Better ground awaits, but punters might want longer than forecast odds of 6-4 to bank on a better performance from Hurricane Lane, whose stablemate Yibir was beaten at 1-4 in this race last year. 

West Wind Blows is the five-year-old's main market rival and may be a safer play after a productive 2022 that offered hope for more this season and with the ground – whatever it is – unlikely to be a concern.
Analysis by James Burn

What they say

Charlie Appleby, trainer of Global Storm and Hurricane Lane 
Hurricane Lane was disappointing at Newbury. The ground was very testing that day and he was racing on the back of a long layoff. William [Buick] felt he got very tired in the last couple of furlongs. From what we've seen at home, he's come out of the race very well. We've applied the cheekpieces to hopefully encourage some more enthusiasm. Global Storm is a good, solid horse and has proved he can be competitive in this calibre of race.

Archie Watson, trainer of Outbox
He's very talented when he's in the right mood and the race sets up well for him. He ran a very good race in this last year, I'm very happy with him and he can run a good race if it pans out well.

Ed Crisford, joint-trainer of West Wind Blows 
He's done extremely well through the winter and strengthened nicely for his four-year-old campaign. We thought this would be a nice race to start him off close to home with a small field, although it's very competitive. He seemed to settle much better at the end of last campaign and if he can do that again, especially over this mile and half, I think he should run a big race. Whatever he does he should come forward.

Rae Guest, trainer of Jewel In My Crown 
The race has cut up, which is good for us as we're looking for some black type. She ran very well at Kempton on her first start this year and likes fast ground. Some of the better horses have question marks against them at the moment, so we're hoping for a big run.
Reporting by Catherine Macrae

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