The entries are out for QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot on October 21 and we pick out five forgotten horses that are amongst the confirmations.
It will take a while to beat Dermot Weld’s training performance with Rite Of Passage in the 2012 Long Distance Cup for Champions Day heroics. He was off the track for 510 days before landing a final career success at Ascot in dramatic style, but he’s not the only horse to win fresh at the meeting.
Just look at the history of the Champion Stakes since it switched to Ascot. Farhh won the race in 2013 after 154 days off the track, Noble Mission won the same race a year later after an 83-day break, Cracksman won his second renewal of the contest after 122 days off and last year Bay Bridge landed the prize having had 105 days since his last run.
It just goes to show that fresh legs can be a factor given that Champions Day comes at the end of a long hard season for many, and with the latest entries just out there are a few names that we haven’t seen for a while amongst this year's Ascot possibles…
CAIRO (147 days off) – Queen Elizabeth II Stakes
Two promising colts trained by Aidan O’Brien finished first and second in the Irish 2,000 Guineas back in May. One of them, Paddington, has won three Group 1s subsequently and is 7/4 favourite for the QEII. The other was Cairo and he hasn’t been seen since, but he is amongst the entries for Ascot and he is chalked up at 40/1. The son of Quality Road has only had four turf runs in his life, but he has proven himself versatile – winning the Killavullan Stakes on soft ground this time last year while coping with faster conditions well in that Irish 2,000 Guineas. He'll likely be the O'Brien second string in the race, unless Paddington somewhat surprisingly took up his Champion Stakes entry, but he is an unexposed colt who could come into the reckoning if he turns up with fresher legs than the rest of the field.
CHALDEAN (104 days off) – Queen Elizabeth II Stakes
Also in the QEII we have the Newmarket 2000 Guineas winner, Chaldean, who hasn’t been seen since disappointing at odds-on in the Prix Jean Prat at Deauville on July 9. He has form to reverse with Paddington, as well, after chasing him home in the St James’s Palace Stakes, but perhaps he can bounce back to his Rowley Mile peak after more than a three-month absence. Well proven on a straight track and a Group 1 winner this time last year in the Dewhurst, Andrew Balding and Juddmonte will be hoping he can prove himself more than a one-hit wonder as a three-year-old. It looks the last-chance saloon on that score, but we know how good he is at his best and the break may well help him rediscover that kind of form.
DUBAI HONOUR (105 days off) – QIPCO Champion Stakes
As discussed the Champion Stakes has been a race in which the fresh horses have really thrived and Dubai Honour could be the interesting one off a break this year. William Haggas’ horse has some previous in this race having finished second to Sealiway here two years ago and that came just two weeks after his win in the Prix Dollar. He goes well fresh, though, as he showed when running away with the Group 1 Ranvet Stakes at Rosehill in Australia in March after 154 days off the track, so his 105-day absence since the Coral-Eclipse looks a positive, if anything.
VADREAM (98 days off) – QIPCO British Champions Sprint
Vadream has run well in the last two British Champion Sprints, finishing fifth to Creative Force and sixth to Kinross. On both occasions it was good to soft and she really wants it softer, so significant rain in the build-up to Champions Day would increase the interest in the Charlie Fellowes-trained mare. You only have to go back to the wet spring to remember why, her wins in the Cammidge Trophy on heavy at Doncaster and the Palace House Stakes on soft at Newmarket, where she beat subsequent Nunthorpe hero Live In The Dream, marking her out as a force to be reckoned with in the top sprints when she gets her ground. Three defeats in the summer can be written off, but she shouldn’t be if the mud is flying whenever she returns to the track having not been seen since the July Cup (she may not be fresh Champions Day, though, if she takes up her engagement at Ascot this Saturday in the Bengough Stakes).
BRENTFORD HOPE (441 days off Flat (161 over jumps)) – Balmoral Handicap
Harry Derham has made a fine start to his career as a jumps trainer and he’s never even had a runner on the Flat, but his Brentford Hope is entered up in the Balmoral Handicap on Champions Day having not run on the level for 441 days. That was in a Group 3 at Haydock, where he was beaten by a subsequent Group 1 winner in Anmaat, while before that he was talented enough to win a Nottingham handicap by three lengths off a mark of 98. He looked a nice recruit to the hurdling game for Derham in the spring having made the switch from Richard Hughes, and this mud-loving son of Camelot’s Balmoral entry looks interesting enough off a rating of 100, for all that he’s owned by a syndicate going by the name of The Optimists.
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