Paddington returns in triumph after the Coral-Eclipse

Coral-Eclipse analysis: David Ord asks how good is Paddington?

By David Ord

Horse Racing

Sun July 09, 2023 · 2y ago

David Ord reflects on Paddington's win in the Coral-Eclipse, a colt who is threatnening to grab the 2023 spotlight from stablemate Auguste Rodin.

Paddington was following in some famous Ballydoyle hoofprints by landing the Coral-Eclipse.

He was Aidan O’Brien’s seventh winner of the Sandown feature and became the first horse since Sadler’s Wells, trained by his predecessor and namesake Vincent, to win the Irish 2000 Guineas and Eclipse in the same season.

Giant’s Causeway was the last colt to add it to his CV after taking the St James’s Palace Stakes en-route. I’d venture to suggest Paddington is also the first winner of the Irish Racing Writers Carmel Kirwan And Loretta O'Hanlon Memorial Madrid Handicap at Naas to go on to Group One glory at Sandown in the same season.

That race was in March, a week after the Cheltenham Festival and run on genuinely heavy ground. Paddington beat Duke Of Leggagh by a length and a quarter from a mark of 97. In the space of three months he has improved by 30 pounds and won three Group Ones. And that’s the exciting thing. Just how high is the ceiling with the son of Siyouni?

Giant's Causeway (blue) beats Kalanisi in an Eclipse thriller

There were comparisons with the remarkable Giant’s Causeway in the build-up to Sandown and you can understand why. Both thrived on racing and rolled through the early summer.

It’s unfair really to be likened to the Iron Horse. He was so tough that connections of his opponents decided the only way to beat him was to avoid the chestnut from seeing their pride and joy.

It didn’t work for Kalanisi in the Juddmonte International, but Observatory finally managed to get past in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes in the autumn.

But by then the son of Storm Cat had added the Sussex Stakes and Irish Champion to his big-race haul – as well as the York feature. He was one of the toughest hombres we’ve seen on a racecourse in modern times and might have signed off with a win in the Breeders’ Cup Classic but for a tangling of the reins and the towering presence of Tiznow.

Paddington is nevertheless showing he has a remarkable constitution and appetite for the battle. O’Brien seemed genuinely surprised when he said the colt was heavier at Sandown than he’d been at Ascot. This is a colt not standing racing – he’s thriving on it.

O'Brien feels he’s getting faster, too. The lads will of course decide his next steps, but it would be a surprise if he too didn’t head to Goodwood for the Sussex before the picture gets a little murkier.

It’s remarkable but in the immediate aftermath of the 2000 Guineas and Derby trials there was a general sense that Ballydoyle were light among the three-year-old colts.

Auguste Rodin had been the horse who their whole season had been built around, but the Triple Crown dream died in an attritional QIPCO 2000 Guineas. It’s one of his trainer’s finest achievements that two months on he’s a dual Derby winner.

There’s talk of him being pointed at the King George, but the Juddmonte International looks a more likely next port of call before potentially the Irish Champion.

If that’s the case then Paddington may stay at a mile for a little while longer post Goodwood, the QEII one of the obvious autumn targets, although there are big pots abroad, too.

And right now Paddington is the best three-year-old in training at Ballydoyle.

His 126 Timeform performance rating for sweeping past Chaldean at Ascot is a pound higher than his stablemate recorded when overhauling King Of Steel at Epsom.

And the bar was raised further on Saturday. The final number will be confirmed on Monday, but it must be pushing 130, the barrier at which a horse becomes top-class in the Timeform lexicon.

Paddington might have an unusual head carriage, but he is a colt on a roll, versatile in terms of trip, tactics and ground. He has the ability to get the job done, dust himself off and roll onto the next challenge.

2023 was supposed to be the year of Auguste Rodin, but he’s got one helluva battle on his hooves if he wants to be the poster boy of the campaign.

It’s a shame we’ll probably never see them lock horns on the racecourse, but it’s advantage Paddington right now.

Most successful trainers in the Coral-Eclipse

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