Oisin Murphy would love to repeat famous Ayr Gold Cup success

Oisin Murphy was a fresh-faced 18-year-old when he won the Ayr Gold Cup as a 5lb claimer on Highland Colori in 2013.

He is back this year with strong claims on Andrew Balding’s Dance In The Storm in the Ladbrokes-sponsored event.

Here, along with other leading contenders, he tells the Press Association what he thinks of his chances:

“She’s a lovely filly and obviously has a very good profile this year and I thought her run at York was excellent. Hopefully she handles the slower ground, she’s never run on anything worse than good to soft, so we just don’t know.

“It’s nice going back to Ayr, it seems a long time ago when I had that four-timer (2013). I had some success last year, so hopefully I can ride well again this year.”

“He ran really well when winning at Goodwood on easy enough ground.

“He came back from there in really good nick, I just hope he can make a fist of things at this time of year, he’s normally in good nick.

“He’s much stronger and more physically developed than he was last year.”

“I don’t really know about the draw. It is hard to know. But they are in good order. Ardisia is firmly a soft ground performer and Stratusnine is very versatile – he goes on any ground.

“They are both in good nick. We are taking a bit of weight off both of them with two very capable young apprentices. Obviously the Ayr Gold Cup is a race that apprentices have won plenty in the past. If they are drawn in the right place they both go there in the sort of form to run really big races.

“They are very different in that one (Ardisia) was a busy two-year-old who hasn’t really had his opportunities this year because it’s been such a dry summer. But when we got him finally on some ease in the ground he ran very well at Goodwood last time.

“Stratusnine is a lightly-raced horse whose best days are very much ahead of him.

“It is difficult to split them, but they both go with decent chances.”

“We’re ready to rock ‘n’ roll. He’s in good form and Ollie (Sangster, trainer) is very happy with him. We feel he’s in better shape probably than he was going into Ascot and we’re hopeful of our chances on Saturday.

“The winner of the five-furlong handicap on Thursday (Opal Storm) came from stall 12 so fingers crossed we can back that up.

“The drop back to five at Ascot really suited him. We were actually contemplating supplementing him for the Flying Five, the Group One at the Curragh, but the prize-money for this was attractive and we thought we may as well give it one last crack in handicaps before going into Pattern company.

“He’s been our flag-bearer really, he’s been awesome. He’s won the Shergar Cup, he won a six-furlong handicap at Newcastle and he did both of those in good fashion. We turned down some fair offers for him after Newcastle and he paid us back at Ascot and hopefully that’s not the last time he will reward our confidence.”

“I won it six years ago on Nahaarr and it feels like a long time ago. They are quite similar types. They both love easy ground.

“It took us a long time to figure out how to ride Nahaarr and get him to relax and Binhareer (like Nahaarr trained by William Haggas) is on that same path, it took us a while to figure out he was a sprinter.

“We’re drawn two, I don’t really know yet if it’s good, there’s a couple drawn around us fancied.

“He hasn’t had his ground yet this year and last year I got the best feel off him at York on soft.”