Charles Darwin continues promising evolution with Naas strike

justified short odds in the Coolmore Stud The Antarctic Race over five furlongs at to stay on course for a trip to .

Debutant Cardiff By The Sea, a 320,000 guineas buy at the breeze-up sales, briefly threatened to make a race of it at the furlong pole, but the 1-14 favourite ultimately sprinted clear to prevail by three and a quarter lengths under Ryan Moore.

The son of No Nay Never is a full-brother to Prix Morny and Middle Park victor Blackbeard and was a fourth straight winner of this race for Aidan O’Brien, with subsequent Coventry Stakes scorer River Tiber among the previous trio.

Having already got off the mark at Navan three weeks ago, Charles Darwin remains the ante-post market leader for Ascot’s Norfolk Stakes next month, with Coral keeping his price at 7-2 and Paddy Power staying unchanged at 3-1.

“We’re very happy, he just needed a nice sharp bit. Obviously the plan is to go to Ascot with him and it was nice to do it on lovely ground,” said O’Brien.

“Ryan was very happy with him, he’s still babyish and I suppose he’s been doing everything so easy. Obviously when he goes to Ascot, he won’t have much time for learning.

“Hopefully that will have done the job and we’ll just look after him between now and then.”

When asked if the Norfolk was the target, he added: “Probably. That could change, it will depend on what the lads want to do, but I’d imagine it’s very likely.

“Albert Einstein might run next weekend and we always thought he could be a Coventry horse, we thought this could be a Norfolk horse but he needed to learn. He was green and babyish and he has to be just caught hold of today. That’s why we were here with him and we’re delighted.”