Fran Berry looks ahead to QIPCO Champions Day at Ascot
Fran Berry reflects on riding a 50th winner of the season and looks ahead to QIPCO Champions Day including his ride in the Champions Long Distance Cup.
Sadly, Haydock's meeting on Friday fell by the wayside, leaving me with a blank afternoon to contend with but earlier in the week it was nice to have a winner for Willie Muir, Red Alert getting the result in a tight finish at Lingfield.
He just got there after being a bit outpaced on the run down hill and it's great to bring up my 50th winner of the season since returning from injury in March.
It'll be nice to keep the ball rolling in the next few weeks but I'm pretty realistic about my chances on Stars Over The Sea in the QIPCO British Champions Long Distance Cup.
He's been mixing both codes over the last few years having been with Mark Johnston, ran in top juvenile hurdles for David Pipe, went back to Mark and now runs for Henry De Bromhead.
He's likely to be going back over jumps in the coming months but did run something like a career best at Naas when second to Renneti in a Group Three over two miles last month.
He's obviously got to try and step up again on that but the fact Henry has decided to bring him over shows he feels the horse can improve and it's the type of race, at the end of the season, that might throw up a shock.
He's a relatively fresh horse, has a nice draw and I'm delighted to be riding him.
There's a strong pace almost guaranteed here with Big Orange likely to go a good gallop but the ground going against him would put me off a bit. They've missed a few engagements with him due to wet weather and the forecast isn't good.
Order Of St George is the obvious one if it's testing based on his Irish St Leger win. It's quite hard to see beyond the favourite but Desert Skyline is a remarkably tough three-year-old and he's only come into his own since tackling staying trips.
He showed his best form at the finish again when winning the Doncaster Cup but the one thing that he's had to his advantage that might not be the case on Saturday is that the weight for age scales were massively in favour of the three-year-olds a couple of months ago, but it's less pronounced now.
Having said that, he's an improving horse still and it wouldn't be a surprise to see him fighting out the finish with the established stayers.
Harry Angel is 0-3 at Ascot but I wouldn't read a lot into that ahead of the Champions Sprint Stakes, only that tactics at Royal Ascot probably got him beat, through no fault of Harry Angel's.
Tactics from the Ballydoyle team won the day on that occasion and again that could be a factor on Saturday. Aidan O'Brien runs a very fast filly in Alphabet, who I rode against a few weeks ago. She's extremely quick over five furlongs and they also field Intelligence Cross and Washington DC so perhaps they're hoping to try and hassle the favourite and set things up again for Caravaggio.
But Harry Angel was exceptional at Haydock, he's clearly settled down now and not as gassy as he was earlier in the season.
I actually feel the biggest danger to Harry Angel could be the lesser horses, not Caravaggio.
And with the pace bound to be on the strong side, and conditions the way they're going to be, I wouldn't put anyone off Librisa Breeze at an each-way price. He's excelled on this track in the past and was a bit unlucky in this event last year.
He ran into a really good horse of Owen Burrows' (Massaat) in the Hungerford and possibly hasn't had the rub of the green so far this year. In a fast-run race, which is what it looks like to me, he could be the one finishing strongly at the end and represents good value around 14/1.
The QIPCO British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes looks a very open race and I've no strong feeling for anything. It could definitely be a race to produce an upset and both French-trained horses, Bateel and Left Hand, look horses to fear.
Ribchester is a very worthy favourite in the QEII and he's done nothing wrong all year really. He's fine on the ground too but if you're looking for value in the race then Al Wukair probably shouldn't be twice the price of Churchill.
He looked a shade unlucky in the 2000 Guineas against Churchill and has progressed since then, winning a Group One. He's trained by the master Andre Fabre, handles all types of going and just strikes me as a horse that'll be much more comfortable at Ascot that he was at Newmarket. He's a big, long-striding horse and I feel the track beat him in the Guineas.
On the subject of value I'd be looking to oppose Cracksman in the QIPCO Champion Stakes, who has looked like he wants every yard of a mile and a half.
Without saying it's a vintage race, it is probably as interesting as you're likely to get and there are so many different profiles of horses coming into it with horses dropping back in trip and others stepping up, plus the class of the generations once again.
Tactics will be big, as we've seen in the past over the mile and a quarter at Ascot, the bend comes up quite quickly and it's going to be fascinating to see how it takes shape.
Cracksman comes back down a couple of furlongs, Barney Roy was a bit unlucky to be chinned by Ulysses in the Eclipse and has run well at York since, while Brametot, Highland Reel and Poet's Word are all worthy challengers you could make a case for on the day.
Even the likes of Success Days you couldn't seriously rule out if it did get very testing, but again I feel there might be a spot of value and the horse that stands out at the odds is Cliffs Of Moher.
Purely on form, if Cracksman's favourite, then O'Brien's supposed second string could be the major value in the race as he beat Cracksman in the Derby when they were second and third to Wings Of Eagles.
He nearly got put through the rail when favourite for the Eclipse and was only beaten four lengths that day. He hasn't been beaten all that far at York and Leopardstown since then and we've seen on countless occasions the way that O'Brien can get horses back to form.
I feel he's had one or two excuses and there could be a lot going for him this weekend.
I'm obviously very disappointed Leader Writer is only third reserve for the Balmoral Handicap, especially with the forecast rain on its way which would definitely have been in his favour.
It looked like he might just get in at the right end of the weights and as I eluded to in the blog a couple of weeks ago when I felt conditions went against him at Newmarket and was really looking forward to getting back on him on a track that suits him well.
You never know, but it looks like he'll just miss out, but I feel there will be other days for him definitely.
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