By Daithi Harvey
Sixteen horses remain in contention for the G1 Coral Eclipse S. at Sandown on Saturday and it could provide a fascinating clash of the generations. Richard Hannon's G1 St James's Palace S. winner Barney Roy (GB) (Excelebration {Ire}), G1 Investec Epsom Derby runner up Cliffs Of Moher (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and fourth placed Eminent (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) head the 3-year-old challenge and could be joined by the Ballydoyle pair of Orderofthegarter (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Taj Mahal (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), Sylvester Kirk's Salouen (Ire) (Canford Cliffs {Ire}) and Mark Johnston's busy G2 King Edward VII S. winner Permian (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}). These 3-year-olds receive a 10lb weight allowance from their elders and Martyn Meade trainer of Eminent has also decided on a change of jockey for his runner. Reigning champion Jim Crowley has been on board Eminent on each of his four starts to date but will be replaced by Silvestre De Sousa on Saturday. “We don't know for sure whether Jim would be available as obviously he is committed to riding for Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum and we wanted to have some certainty,” Meade said on Monday. “I discussed it with the owner and we decided that a change might be the way to go. Hopefully Silvestre will come and have a sit on the horse this week, that would be the plan. All the work is done, so he doesn't need to do any work on him, but hopefully he'll have a sit on him,” he added.
The 6-year-old Lightning Spear (GB) (Pivotal {GB}) is the eldest in the field while Jack Hobbs (GB) (Halling), disappointing over the same ten furlong trip in the G1 Prince Of Wales 's has been left in by John Gosden along with other 5-year-olds Decorated Knight (GB) (Galileo {Ire}), Desert Encounter (Ire) (Halling) and the mare Blond Me (Ire) (Tamayuz {GB}). The 4-year-old Ballydoyle pair of Deauville (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Johannes Vermeer (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) have been left in as have the Sir Michael Stoute trained Ulysses (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Algometer (GB) (Archipenko) who is one of three potentials for David Simcock.
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