BIG-RACE RATINGS AND STATS: Daqman today tells the story of each King George contender with ratings and stats for Saturday’s big race.
CHECK OUT THESE JUVENILES: There are top two-year-olds running at Sandown and Leopardstown, and a Yarmouth nap at decent offers on Betdaq Betting Exchange.
THE KING GEORGE FORM
⭕ 3.40 Ascot, Saturday (King George V1 and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, 1m 4f, Group 1) STATS: Only one colt has won this as favourite in the last decade. Four favourites have won but Enable, super filly turned magic mare, scored three of them.
Seven second-season colts and fillies have won since 1994; with one exception, they had won Derby or Oaks.
Some 11-13 four-year-olds won between 2004 and 2016; five-year-olds seven since 1988; and the only six-year-old winners since 1951 have been Swain (1998), Enable (2020) and Hukum last year.
TRAINERS: John Gosden 5 and Aidan O’Brien 4.
DRAW: Stalls 3 and 4 have together taken the last four King Georges (3, 4, 4, 4).
RATINGS (in quality order): 128, 128, 126, 125, 122, 121, 119, 119, 118, 116.
123 AUGUSTE RODIN 4yo (Aidan O’Brien): Won English and Irish Derbys and Breeders Cup Turf 2023. Stopped twice this year but back to form at Royal Ascot (Prince Of Wales’s Stakes), beating 116 and 118 rated over 1m 2f.
120 LUXEMBOURG 5yo (Aidan O’Brien) Win 2022 Irish Champion Stakes (2nd to Auguste Rodin last year) and 7th in the Arc de Triomphe; back to form, winning the Coronation Cup in May.
120 REBEL’S ROMANCE 6yo (Charlie Appleby) International superstar with five Group/Grade 1 strikes in American, Dubai, Germany, Hong Kong and Qatar, since scoring in England two years back.
119 CONTINUOUS 4yo (Aidan O’Brien) Won the Great Voltigeur and St Leger of 2023 and short of room, fifth, in the Arc de Triomphe. Seen only in the Group-2 Hardwicke at Ascot (fifth) since.
118 DUBAI HONOUR 6yo (William Haggas) 1m 2f winner in Australia twice last Spring; back to form in June as winner of the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud.
117 BLUESTOCKING 4yof (Ralph Beckett) Third 2023 Ribblesdale, 2nd Irish Oaks and British Champions Fillies And Mares. Beat Emily Upjohn the last day in Curragh Pretty Polly Stakes.
116 POINT LONSDALE 5yo entire (Aidan O’Brien) 8th in this last year; back to form with success in the Ormonde Stakes in May before third to Dubai Honour in the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud.
115 SUNWAY 3yo (David Menuisier) Won the 1m Saint Cloud International last October and second in the Greffulhe there in May. Beat the English Derby runner-up when second to Los Angeles in the Irish Derby in June.
114 MIDDLE EARTH 4yo (Team Gosden) Won a Group 3 at Newbury in May before third in the Hardwicke at Royal Ascot.
112 GOLIATH 4yo (Francois-Henri Graffard) Second in the Hardwicke at Royal Ascot.
102 HANS ANDERSEN 4yo (Aidan O’Brien) 9th of 10 behind Auguste Rodin at Royal Ascot (Prince Of Wales’s Stakes) and behind in three other Group starts, after opening his season with an AW win at Dundalk.
A RAY OF HIGH HOPES
⭕ 3.15 Sandown, today There could be real class waiting to emerge here from a quality bunch of two-year-old fillies in a race which produced Inspiral (2021) who would go on that year to win the May Hill and ultimately the Breeders Cup Fillies and Mares.
Ollie Sangster, who won it last year, with Shuwari beating subsequent Moyglare winner, Fallen Angel, saddles Celestial Orbit.
Flaming Stone, who beat a Sangster stablemate (Flight) at Newbury, is also from a yard which has won this before.
Del Ray intrigues me. She is a daughter of Kameko, who showed rapid progress and won the 2,000 Guineas under Oisin Murphy, who rides Del Ray today.
NEWS FLASH: BIG STORY
⭕ 5.50 Leopardstown Here’s the first of the week’s Fortune Cookies, Bedtime Story, who seems to have such an easy in this Silver Flash Stakes that she is surely prepping for a Group 1.
This applied to the same stable’s Happily (2017) and Love (2019), who went on from this to win the Moyglare. We listed the Moyglare for Bedtime Story in our Fortune Cookies update earlier in the week.
NOT SHY TO DOUBLE UP
⭕ 7.00 Yarmouth On Monday, I listed Farhh To Shy as a winning Daqman nap last year – on this day in this race, in fact – and I have no doubt the mare is fancied to repeat the feat, now a pound below her winning mark in that race.
She came to the meeting after three runs at Ascot and here she is after two runs at Ascot. A creature of habit, you might say; but in fact, it’s the trainer who finds winning opportunities habit forming.
KING LEAR THE NAP PLAY
⭕ 8.30 Yarmouth The snag with Midair (Lays Logic), as a lightweight snip off 8st, is that he doesn’t win races. He’s been second four times, three of them in photo-finishes.
Four times beaten favourite, including after a gelding op, he changes jockey to claimer Sean Bowen from James Doyle and William Buick.
Believe In Stars has also been second twice running as beaten favourite, after beating King Lear a head at Goodwood last September.
King Lear catches my eye here. Out of a mare who climbed to Group-1 status at age four, ‘he’ has been given plenty of time and, now gelded, could be the one to play as the last act of a busy meeting for George Boughey and Billy Loughnane.
DAQMAN’S BETS
3.15 Sandown (win 20)
BET 2.75pts win DEL RAY
5.50 Leopardstown
FORTUNE COOKIE
BET 20pts win BEDTIME STORY
7.00 Yarmouth (win 20)
BET 2.5pts win FARHH TO SHY
8.30 Yarmouth (win 20, nap)
BET 2.5pts win KING LEAR
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