Indian Haven is set to try to follow up Saturday's Entenmann's Irish 2,000 Guineas success at Royal Ascot but the bookmakers believe the most likely St James' Palace Stakes winner wasn't at the Curragh at all.

Paul d'Arcy reported Indian Haven in good shape yesterday and confirmed the Ascot plan. But that news, and the colt's one length defeat of France, didn't have the bookies exactly quivering with fear.

Instead it was Kalaman, impressive in Kempton's Heron Stakes after the Michael Stoute team decided the Curragh ground was too soft, who had Cashmans running for cover with a 6 to 4 quote for the St James' Palace. In contrast Indian Haven was dismissed at 7 to 1 while France and Saturday's third Tout Seul are on 16 to 1 and 10 to 1 respectively.

That will matter little to d'Arcy, Stoute's former work rider, whose €40,000 decision to supplement Indian Haven for the Guineas paid off in spades. But it wasn't the first gamble the Newmarket trainer had brought off.

Convinced of the colt's talent, d'Arcy persuaded his new landlords to cough up 95,000 guineas last October to keep Indian Haven in the yard.

"I always knew he was a good horse," he said calmly on Saturday before grinning: "40,000 was a lot of money to put a horse in a race but it's not a gamble when you're sure!" One man glad for d'Arcy's powers of persuasion is John Egan and the Ballinasloe-born rider celebrated his 35th birthday in some style.

Egan endured some unwelcome publicity last year as he was questioned as part of a Hong Kong investigation into alleged corruption. But he beamed yesterday: "This is a dream. I really believed that with normal luck he would win."

Local trainer Michael Halford had a first when another supplementary entry, Miss Emma, gave him his first Group success in the Greenlands Stakes.

Aidan O'Brien confirmed Ascot's Coventry Stakes is on Newton's agenda after the colt's success in the Marble Hill.