NEXT month's Boomerang Stakes on Irish Champions Weekend at Leopardstown is a potential target for Wiltshire-trained Toormore after last season's champion juvenile got his career back on track with an encouraging run in defeat at Glorious Goodwood.

Richard Hannon's three-year-old rounded off an unbeaten two-year-old campaign with victory in the National Stakes at the Curragh last September, but since making a winning return in the Craven Stakes, he has failed to live up to expectations this term.

Toormore was well beaten in both the 2000 Guineas and the St James's Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot and while he suffered an odds-on reverse in last week's Lennox Stakes, his neck defeat to Es Que Love was at least a step in the right direction.

Tim Palin, racing manager for owners Middleham Park Racing, said: "It was good to see him run his race. He'd been in the wilderness a little bit on his previous two runs, so it was heartening to see the real Toormore again.

"A really slowly-run seven furlongs on a tight track like Goodwood probably found him out. I think he probably underachieved about 5lb because of the way the race was run.

"I think ideally he wants a mile and there are a few options for him.

"The Celebration Mile has been mentioned, but that comes up quite quick on August 23 and he's a horse who probably prefers about a month between his races.

"He's in the Hungerford Stakes at Newbury, but I don't think he'll be going there over seven furlongs.

"The two races that jump out at you are the Boomerang Stakes (formerly Solonaway Stakes, September 13) on Irish Champions Weekend at Leopardstown, a Group Two over a mile, and the Prix Daniel Wildenstein on Arc weekend at Longchamp.

"We might also stick in the Prix de la Foret, even though it's seven furlongs, just in case the race cuts up and the ground is soft."

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