Michael Matz’s exciting three-year-old, Union Rags, runner-up to Bodemeister in last November’s Grade 1 Grey Goose Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs, is on course to return to that same venue for the Kentucky Derby itself, when the ‘Run for the Roses’ comes to town on May 5, writes Elliot Slater.

The son of Dixie Union arrived at the Breeders Cup with an unblemished record, having scooted up in his three previous outings, including a seven-length success in the Grade 2 Three Chimneys Saratoga Special Stakes, after which he slammed Alpha by over five lengths in the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park, last October.

Sent off the 7/4 favourite to win in Breeders Cup betting, Javier Castellano’s mount controversially rolled one way then the other in the last half furlong of the showcase contest, eventually failing by just a head to hold Hansen in one of the best finishes of the two-day world class fixture.

Castellano has been replaced on board Union Rags this term by Julian Leparoux, who partnered Matz’s star to a four-length victory at Gulfstream Park, in February, in the Grade 2 Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth Stakes. Then, he had things fail to go his way, when slightly missing the kick, when odds-on for the Florida Derby, only to finish well to be third.

Bookmakers currently rate the exciting colt an 11/2 second favourite (behind 9/2 chance Bodemeister) for the Kentucky Derby, and reports suggest that he has been working well of late.

He will go to the first leg of the US Triple Crown with a serious chance of lying to rest the ghost of his defeat at the track, last autumn, and possibly set himself up for a crack at the most elusive of international thoroughbred achievements.