Aidan O’Brien may have divided his forces but will still be able to fire the big guns on Saturday.
Churchill will lead his trio of runners in the Qipco Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.
The dual 2000 Guineas winner, second in the Juddmonte International at York, is hot favourite to provide O'Brien with an eighth victory in this race and will be joined by Cliffs Of Moher, the Derby runner-up who was fourth in the Juddmonte, and Taj Mahal.
The British challenge is headed by Martyn Meade's stable star Eminent who won a Group Two race at Deauville last month and will be ridden for the first time by Frankie Dettori.
O’Brien chose not to run his start filly Winter who will instead contest the Coolmore Fastnet Rock Matron Stakes on the same card as she attempts a fifth consecutive Group One victory and also elected to withdraw Caravagio from the big race at Haydock, the 32Red Sprint Cup, relying instead on Cougar Mountain and Spirit Of Valor with the Clive Cox-trained Harry Angel heading a field of 12.
One race that appears O’Brien’s for the taking is the Comer Group International Irish St Leger at the Curragh on Sunday. Michael Bell has decided not to send Big Orange due to soft ground leaving the way clear for O’Brien’s Order of St George, who is the odds-on favourite to win the race for a second time.
Big Orange will now switch to the Prix du Cadran at Chantilly next month.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here