John Ingles previews some intriguing head-to-heads at Ascot next Saturday including a third meeting between Ombudsman and Delacroix.
Champions Sprint Stakes: Montassib v Kind of Blue
Just a head separated Montassib and Kind of Blue when they met for the first time in the Sprint Cup at Haydock just over a year ago. Both were outsiders that day, with Ceiren Fallon delivering a well-timed challenge on 25/1 shot Montassib, trained by William Haggas, to get the better of his younger rival, trained by James Fanshawe, who was sent off at 14/1.
However, Kind of Blue didn’t have to wait much longer for his own Group 1 win as he turned the tables on Montassib when they met again in last year’s Champion Sprint on soft ground. However, it wasn’t the underfoot conditions which accounted for the different result but race position, with those held up finding it difficult to make up ground. Kind of Blue had a pitch just behind the leaders, whereas Montassib raced well off the pace and could only run on for fifth.
Neither sprinter has won yet this season but both shaped well with this race in mind last time. Montassib made a belated reappearance only last month but ran a race full of promise over an inadequate five furlongs in the World Trophy at Newbury. He was badly outpaced in the early stages but stayed on strongly to take third in the final strides behind stablemate First Instinct.
As for Kind of Blue, he hasn’t had the success this season that his Ascot win had promised but he looks on the way back to recapturing last autumn’s form and was runner-up in the Sprint Cup again last time when running on behind Big Mojo.
Queen Elizabeth II Stakes: Field of Gold v Fallen Angel
Top-class three-year-old Field of Gold heads the Timeform ratings for John & Thady Gosden in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, a race Gosden senior has won four times. While Field of Gold was a beaten favourite in the 2000 Guineas, that did little to disrupt his momentum in the first half of the year which saw him take the Craven Stakes, Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes, all of them in good style.
Field of Gold’s best performance came over the round mile at Royal Ascot which was up with some of the best winners of the race in the last thirty years, having the 2000 Guineas winner Ruling Court back in third as he quickened impressively to pull three and a half lengths clear of Henri Matisse. His odds-on defeat in the Sussex Stakes was therefore a shock, but on top of failing to handle the track in a strange race won by his supposed pacemaker Qirat, Field of Gold was found to be lame the next day.
Field of Gold remains with the potential to do better, therefore, especially back on a more conventional track, but in Fallen Angel he faces a filly at the top of her game who has completed a Group 1 hat-trick inside the eighty days since Field of Gold last ran. After game wins in the Prix Rothschild and Matron Stakes, she had more to spare in the Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket last time when better than ever, albeit under conditions that favoured front runners.
But she’ll have more on her plate over Ascot’s stiff mile against male rivals, and the prospect of a dry week may well mean she’ll have to cope with firmer conditions than ideal.
Champion Stakes: Ombudsman v Delacroix
The most anticipated clash of all on the card surely comes in the Champion Stakes where Ombudsman and Delacroix are set to lock horns for the third time this season. Their first meeting took place in the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown in July when Aidan O’Brien’s three-year-old came out on top, doing really well to reel in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes winner.
After getting shuffled back towards the rear, Delacroix found himself boxed in early in the straight and conceded first run to Ombudsman as a result who was produced to lead around two furlongs out. Delacroix still looked an unlikely winner but in the final furlong, as Ombudsman edged to his right, Delacroix found a telling foot to lead close home for a neck win.
But Ombudsman has a potent change of pace himself and demonstrated that when the pair met again in the Juddmonte International at York where John & Thady Gosden’s colt turned the tables on a below-par Delacroix in convincing fashion. Readily eating into the clear lead established by his pacemaker Birr Castle, Ombudsman quickened clear to win by three and a half lengths from Delacroix who only just managed to pass the long-time leader for second, Ryan Moore not looking happy on him from some way out.
But since then, Delacroix was right back to his best in the Irish Champion Stakes when beating last year’s Champion Stakes winner Anmaat after bursting to the front under Christophe Soumillon early in the straight. That sets up another fascinating clash between two top-class colts with a fine turn of foot, so tactics and luck in running in Ascot’s short straight could prove crucial.
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