O'Brien team outnumbers Post opposition

Aidan O'Brien is taking no chances as he attempts to maintain his domination of Europe's Group One races. The Tipperary trainer has won every top-level juvenile contest open to colts this season and yesterday declared 10 horses out of a total of 15 confirmations for Saturday's Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster.

The Irish champion trainer's acceptors for the last Group One race of the season in Britain are headed by Castle Gandolfo, but other possibles include last week's Newmarket winner Century City. The opposition is led by the supplemented Godolphin runner Mount Joy, and the only others not to have been frightened off are Richard Hannon's Redback, Brian Meehan's Savannah Bay, Mark Tompkins's Tahitian Storm and the James Given-trained Mr Sandancer.

One two-year-old who could provide some opposition to the Ballydoyle hoards in next year's Classics is Mark Johnston's Bandari, the impressive winner of yesterday's Listed Silver Tankard at Pontefract by nine lengths from the David Loder-trained Infinite Spirit.

The Middleham trainer said: "Bandari will be trained for a Derby – it is great to have such a bunch of two-year-olds to go into next year. It is fantastic.

"It is hard to for me to name which is the best of them, we have that many. I have got two or three Guineas candidates, two or three Derby candidates and I have never been in that position before."

* The victory of Positive Profile in the second race at Pontefract produced a Jackpot-busting performance. The 33-1 shot, who paid £261.20 on the Tote, was the complete outsider of the field with just £1 worth of Jackpot lines riding on it, compared with Itsanothergirl, who carried punters' hopes to the tune of £4,116. The result reduced the £53,800 invested on the Jackpot to a solitary £1 which was lost when Jack The Track was beaten in the next race. A pool of £158,322 rolls over to Wolverhampton today and is expected to grow to at least £250,000.

* Today's card at Yarmouth and tomorrow's meeting at Nottingham have been abandoned due to waterlogging. Newcastle inspect at noon today for tomorrow's card.