Delacroix came with a powerful late run to overhaul Ombudsman close home and win the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown.
Ombudsman, sent off the 6/4 favourite on the back of an emphatic victory in the Prince of Wales's Stakes at Royal Ascot, was delivered with a smooth run to hit the front over a couple of furlongs out and he dug in well to fend off the challenge of French Derby winner Camille Pissarro, the Ballydoyle second string.
However, Delacroix, the choice of Ryan Moore and the 3/1 second favourite, flew home having still been last approaching the final furlong and he got up late in the day to win by a neck. It was a first Group 1 success and it was achieved in remarkable style given he was hemmed in when first attempting to make headway and then had plenty of ground to make up when in the clear.
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Moore, who was keeping the faith with Delacroix following a disappointing effort when sent off favourite for the Derby at Epsom last month, said to ITV Racing: "It wasn't the first or the second or even the third plan.
"He began okay. The two lads [on Sosie and Hotazhell] both wanted to go forward but neither really wanted to make it. There was going to be three of us in a line, but William [Buick, on Ombudsman] wanted the same position and I've had to give way.
"They've got first run on me, but he's obviously a very good horse with a mighty turn of foot and he quickened up really well.
"It was a steadily-run race for that class of horse, but this horse had a really good turn of foot and that made the difference."
On how the race developed, Moore added: "William was out deep and we both wanted to be in the same spot, but he was on an older, bigger horse and I would have wasted petrol by trying to hold him there, so I thought we'd wait. Then Camille [Pissarro] came, so we had to wait again, but it was a good turn of foot that got him out of trouble."
O'Brien hails Moore
Aidan O'Brien, who was winning the race for a ninth time and for the fourth time in five years, hailed an "incredible" ride from Moore and said: "I’d say it was one of his best rides. It was kind of a fog to me as there was so much happening, but it looked incredible. We see him do it so often whether it is from the front or the back.
“We see Ryan every day and things he does. I don’t know how long he has been riding for us now but I say every year he gets better. He makes himself better all the time.”
He added: "Ryan said he changed plan four times in the race, but I didn’t get a good look at it, but he said the way it was changing was incredible. He was calm, collected and clinical."
O'Brien was also full of praise for Delacroix, and said: "When you can relax and quicken like that over a mile and a quarter it is a brilliant thing to have up your sleeve.
“He came at the death and it was mind-blowing from where he came from, and to make that ground up it was incredible."
Delacroix was cut to a general 4/1 for the Juddmonte International Stakes at York next month. The market is headed by impressive St James's Palace Stakes winner Field of Gold at 6/4.
Reaction from placed connections
John Gosden, joint-trainer of the runner-up, was pleased with his horse's effort, though didn't think the race developed in his favour. He explained: "We thought Delacroix would go forward and then the French horse [Sosie] would go forward and of course it is all the other way around, but that happens in small fields. It didn’t turn out the way we thought, but he has run a wonderful race.
"He was trapped rather wide and he got close to a pace where the others have ended out the back with it and Delacroix has run us down late. Full marks to the winner and he has outstayed the lot of them and at the end it was down to stamina. "
Ruling Court, the 2000 Guineas winner, kept on well to grab third close home on his first start at a mile and a quarter. His trainer Charlie Appleby said: “Ten furlongs is his trip. Of course you want to go out and win, but I came here with the mindset that if I finish third in this calibre I will take a lot of positives out of it.
“It was a race that none of us expected to be run like that if I’m brutally honest with you. It wasn’t our original plan to be where we were, but one thing I will say is that we know we are going now and that is to Deauville for the Prix Guillaume d’Ornano.
“The horse done very little wrong and he has not been out of the first three in his career.
“He is a horse next year that hopefully we will be working back from a Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.”
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