DONN McCLEAN: A couple of things worth noting about Saturday’s Victoria Cup at Ascot. Firstly, it looks impossible, 29 runners in a seven-furlong sprint that makes the Charge of the Light Brigade look like a riding lesson.
Secondly, it isn’t. It is possible to happen upon the winner. Admittedly, the favourite has won just once in the last 10 years – and he (Zahid 2008) wasn’t even clear favourite – but the winners haven’t been unfindable, the results haven’t been unfathomable. Four of the last 10 winners were priced in single figures, and eight of them were sent off at 16/1 or lower. To put that into context, and this may change, but, as things stand, just six of the 29 declared runners for tomorrow’s race are priced up at 16/1 or less.
Thirdly, older horses struggle. One of the last 10 winners was seven years old, and one was six years old, but the other eight were either four or five. That makes sense, it is the younger horses who have the most potential for progression. They are more lightly raced than the older horses, more unexposed, and it is possible that one or two of them are significantly better than the rating that the handicapper has allotted for this race. And they have the potential to improve past their marks.
Fourthly, the higher-weighted horses tend to struggle. Only one winner in the last nine years has carried 9st or more, and the median winning weight in that period is 8st 10lb. Last year, the first four home carried, respectively (with jockeys’ claims taken into account), 8st 9lb, 8st 12lb, 8st 1lb and 8st 2lb.
Grand Inquisitor fits all those criteria, and he has lots more in his favour besides as a Victoria Cup candidate. He is only four, he is relatively lightly-raced, and he has the potential to be a fair bit better than the handicap rating of 96 off which he will race tomorrow.
Highly-regarded last season, his first season to race, he ran a race that was full of promise on his debut this season when he finished sixth in a seven-furlong handicap at Newmarket three weeks ago on ground that should really have been softer than ideal for him.
He didn’t have much luck that day either. Weak in the market beforehand, he travelled well through his race, but he had to check his run twice inside the final two furlongs. He ran a lot better than the bare form suggests.
That run, his seasonal debut, should have brought him forward for this, a race that has probably been his early-season target for a while. And we know that he handles Ascot. He ran well in a one-mile handicap there last July to finish fifth behind Portage. Again, the ground should have been softer than ideal for him that day, and he was held up out the back in a race in which the prominent racers were ultimately at an advantage. Also, the trip was probably a little longer than ideal for him.
A stiff seven furlongs on good or fast ground is close to his optimum, and he will have something like that in the Victoria Cup. The handicapper has left him on his mark of 96 after his Newmarket run, and that mark may under-estimate him. He beat My Dream Boat in a seven-furlong handicap at Sandown last year, and My Dream Boat is now rated 117, 33lb higher than he was for that race.
Grand Inquisitor’s rating of 96 is only 12lb higher than the mark off which he raced that day.
Of course, it is not a given that the Dansili colt will achieve the magnitude of improvement that My Dream Boat – now a Group 3 winner – has achieved, but it does show that he still has leeway off his current mark.
He is down towards the lower end of the weights, his burden of 8st 12lb is good, and Sir Michael Stoute has started off this season brightly. He had 13 winners from 57 runners in April, which represented a strike rate of 23%, which compares favourably with his four previous April strike rates of, respectively, 10%, 14%, 14% and 10%. And May has started just as brightly, with six winners already on the board at the time of writing from 16 runners.
There are several other lightly-weighted youngsters in there who have the potential to be better than their handicap ratings, but you can pick holes. Neither Valley Of Fire nor Mullionheir have had a run this season – and it is very difficult to win the Victoria Cup on your seasonal debut – and Hold Tight may just lack the experience for the hurly-burly of a 29-runner handicap.
Predominance is a big danger, he showed a nice turn of foot at Haydock last time and he could easily be progressive enough to withstand a 6lb hike, but he has never raced at Ascot, and he is a shorter price than Grand Inquisitor.
Sir Michael Stoute’s horse has that ideal mix of experience and potential for progression, he only made his racecourse debut just over a year ago, he comes from a trainer who is in form, he is racing on a track on which he is proven, and he will be racing under conditions that are close to optimal, over what is probably his ideal trip and on ground that should be ideal.
It is a highly-competitive race but, if he runs his race and gets normal luck in-running, he could go close.
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