William Buick roars with delight as Ombudsman has the race in safe keeping

Ombudsman: One of the star attractions on Champions Day

Ascot: Hold my beer! Qipco British Champions Day 2025 is shaping up to be a cracker

By Ben Linfoot

Horse Racing

Sun October 12, 2025 · 2M ago

Our Ben Linfoot says Ascot’s Qipco British Champions Day can hold its own amongst the season-ending championships ahead of a stellar renewal.

It’s only a few days since I read a comment piece from Richard Forristal in the Racing Post titled ‘Follow that, Ascot!’ in which Qipco British Champions Day was challenged to serve up the sort of entertainment we saw in Paris last weekend.

There were a few salient points in the piece, notably the excellent job ParisLongchamp do with €9million in prizemoney up for grabs across Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe weekend, but I felt the Champions Day bashing was a tad excessive including the intimation that the whole concept hadn’t worked.

I don’t think any racing fan would deny there have been many memorable moments on Champions Day over the years, from Frankel, his brother Noble Mission, Almanzor, Cracksman and Frankie Dettori on King Of Steel, to Excelebration, Solow, Roaring Lion, Baaeed and Big Rock.

Of course, the jewels in the crown, the Champion Stakes and the QEII, existed long before Champions Day, but they certainly haven’t suffered for being packaged up on the same card and the supporting races have had more than their fair share of quality moments too.

Who could forget Muhaarar or Kinross in the Champions Sprint? Magical or Kalpana in the Fillies' & Mares’? And the Long Distance Cup has been so good, thanks to Rite Of Passage, Stradivarius, Kew Gardens (what a race), Trueshan (three times), Trawlerman and Kyprios, that it has rightly been upgraded to a Group 1 this year.

And for those sickos that love a 20-runner handicap over the straight mile (me) there’s always the Balmoral.

Delacroix: Given the green light for Champions Day

With a week to go to Champions Day big guns are shuffling their packs, notably Aidan O’Brien, who finally gave the green light for Delacroix running in Berkshire next weekend.

The only surprise is he’s going for the Champion Stakes rather than the QEII, the lure of a final instalment of his trilogy with Ombudsman proving more of an attraction than getting a mile Group 1 win on the C.V with the stallion adverts in mind.

Ombudsman v Delacroix III is an absolute humdinger, the final compelling chapter of the domestic Flat season, and we’ve got a week to hype it to the max. I’m here for that. It should be a brilliant race.

Aidan won’t be without representation in the QEII, with The Lion In Winter pencilled in for that, his French renaissance hinting that he might be capable of somehow pulling a Group 1 out of the fire at three despite all of his travails.

Of course, it will be tough if Field Of Gold is on top form, while we might see Rosallion, too, as, whisper it quietly for the love of God, but we might have ground on the good side with the conditions holding up well and the weather set fair.

Throw Fallen Angel into the mix and that is a scorching QEII, while you can’t blame Champions Day for the state of the sprinting division, that’s just not fair.

In any case, the Champions Sprint is also shaping up to be a helluva race, with Ascot specialists everywhere you look. There’s Lazzat. There’s Big Mojo. There’s Kind Of Blue. There’s Art Power. There’s Inisherin. All course and distance winners. You can throw in Montassib and Flora Of Bermuda, as well.

Kalpana and Lazzat are back for more at Ascot

Kalpana is on track for a repeat bid for the Fillies’ & Mares’. It won’t be easy if Estrange turns up – although both she and Kalpana would want some rain – but then there’s Diamond Rain and Waardah and Danielle, so we should have a good race whatever the weather does.

Trawlerman could be one of the stars of the show in the Long Distance Cup in its first iteration as a Group 1. He’s odds-on, but again, Aidan will have something. He says St Leger third Stay True will be supplemented for starters, while Arc-winning trainer Francis-Henri Graffard could run Sibayan for the Aga Khan family.

That’s already miles better than last weekend’s weak renewal of the Prix du Cadran, while the card is bookended by the new conditions race for two-year-olds and the aforementioned Balmoral which might allow David O’Meara to get his name on the roll of honour again.

Champions Day hasn’t been perfect and Ascot are still tinkering. It’s largely reliant on Qipco cash in its current guise and sometimes proper autumnal ground makes it a less appealing Flat racing spectacle.

But it’s the last marquee day of the British Flat season. We don’t want that to be in August or September. It extends to the depths of October, a week before the clocks go back.

Sometimes it’s just okay and sometimes it’s brilliant. This year’s renewal is shaping up to be the latter.

Ascot: Hold my beer! Qipco British Champions Day 2025 is shaping up to be a cracker

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