Daryz can rise to his toughest challenge yet
A win for Daryz in the Prince of Wales Stakes will confirm his status as the best middle-distance horse on the planet. Pic: Healy Racing
Royal Ascot kicks off this afternoon. Five days of exceptional Flat racing, with an exceptional race each day.
The St James’s Palace Stakes on Tuesday should decide who is the season’s champion three-year-old miler. Bow Echo and Gstaad, impressive winners of the English and Irish Guineas respectively, renew their Newmarket rivalry.
Bow Echo looked an exceptional horse when he easily beat Gstaad by nearly three lengths in the English Classic, a performance that was further endorsed when Gstaad dished out the same treatment to the useful Distant Storm at the Curragh next time out.
Bow Echo’s trainer, George Boughey, steadily emerging as a powerhouse of British training has no doubts regarding the potential and the ability of his Night Of Thunder colt. “We've seen an improved physical specimen since Newmarket,” says Boughey, “and his work since the Guineas has undoubtedly got stronger. Going into Ascot he has now proved himself to be the horse we hoped he would be.”
Happily, last year’s Arc winner Daryz has been kept in training and has been asked to prove this season that he is far more than a soft ground middle distance animal. The answer so far is a resounding ‘yes.’
The Francis Graffard-trained colt has done something uncommon this year by winning two Group 1s in France (the Ganay and D’Ispahan) over 10 and nine-furlongs respectively. The Prince Of Wales’s Stakes is his toughest challenge yet as he lines up against talented 10-furlong specialist Ombudsman.
This is arguably the race of the week, perhaps even the season, and a win for Daryz will confirm his status as the best middle-distance horse on the planet.
Aidan O’Brien and John Gosden have won the Ascot Gold Cup 14 times between them and Thursday’s feature race should fall in their direction again. Gosden’s main contender is last year’s winner Trawlerman who will be wearing the equine equivalent of ski goggles pre-race as a mitigation to an eye condition that is sensitive to sunlight.
The four-year-old Scandinavia is only half Trawlerman’s age and is on an upward curve that might see him dominate the staying division in the coming seasons.
A winner of four of his five races last year, including the Goodwood Cup and the English Leger, he has won a couple of pipe-openers at Navan and Leopardstown this spring and Aidan O’Brien will have him hard fit and ready for his toughest test yet.
Turning water into wine is the first miracle recorded in the New Testament. It wouldn’t take another miracle for a horse named in honour of the heavenly event to win the King Edward VII Stakes on Friday when the unbeaten and highly-rated Water To Wine reappears for John Gosden. Unraced at two, he won his maiden impressively at Newbury in April before a chest infection curtailed a planned run in the Derby. That might prove a blessing for a rangy, immature colt.
He warmed up by winning an egg and spoon race at Kempton by 11 lengths under Ryan Moore who rides his biggest market rival, Benvenuto Cellini. ‘Ben’ as his trainer Aidan O’Brien likes to call him, produced a miracle himself at Epsom when he managed to start favourite, complete the race, finish tenth and yet still be declared a non-runner due to a starting stall technicality. This is an absorbing contest between horses that could figure prominently through the second half of the season.
Both Australia and Japan have made solid starts in the World Cup, and they might lock horns when things heat up in the later stages of the tournament. As a warm-up, the nations will come face to face in the white heat of the Group 1 Jubilee Stakes over a fast six-furlongs on Saturday.
The five-year-old mare Joliestar is the big hope for the Aussies. Trained by the legendary Chris Waller who recently saddled his 200th Group 1 winner who says that “she’s never been in more consistent form, and she’s always been a Group 1 horse and she’s the right horse to bring.”
Joliestar has won 10 of her 21 career starts while her Japanese rival on Saturday, Satono Reve, has won nine of 18. Satona’s problem is that she keeps running up against Ka Ying Rising in Hong Kong who is arguably one of the fastest horses to ever crunch an oat. Satono Reve started favourite for this race last year but was touched off by Lazzat and the track experience could bring a marginal advantage to the well-travelled seven-year-old.
