Valuable seven-furlong handicaps are a familiar part of Ascot’s programme from the Victoria Cup each spring right through to autumn but, while there is plenty of course-and-distance form to consider in Saturday’s totepool Challenge Cup, it does not make the process of finding the winner any less challenging.
However, the fact that the Queen’s runner Prince’s Trust, the likely favourite, has yet to set foot at Ascot significantly reduces his appeal at morning odds of around 5-1. He was a convincing winner on his belated seasonal debut at Yarmouth in August and has the excellent claimer Cam Hardie in the saddle but that was a seven-runner race and he is now 12lb higher and facing a very different challenge.
There are better alternatives at the prices and American Hope (3.50) may be the right option at 7-1. The three-year-old ran well to finish sixth over a mile in the Britannia Handicap at the Royal meeting and is a free-going type who could well find some improvement for the drop back to seven furlongs. Blaine, third when favourite for the Ayr Gold Cup, is another who may appreciate this trip and looks the pick of the each-way chances at 16-1.
Newmarket 1.50 A thin field for a race worth £300,000 and Osaila, who ran well in Group One company last time out, will be odds-on to add another £168,000 to Al Shaqab racing’s prize money total for the year. Not that they really need it.
Ascot 2.05 Muthmir looked a Group One winner of the near future when he overcame trouble in running to take the Portland Handicap at Doncaster last month. He was taken out of Sunday’s Prix de l’Abbaye earlier in the week but should make short work of today’s opponents.
Newmarket 2.20 A more competitive race than the earlier fillies’ event for graduates of Tattersalls’ Book 1 October Sale last year and so it should be with £500,000 in the purse. Heartbreak Hero ran well to finish second in a similar race at Doncaster last month and may achieve the unusual feat of exceeding £400,000 in earnings in his juvenile season without contesting a Pattern race.
Ascot 2.40 The race conditions are highly favourable to Encke, whose name will always summon memories of Camelot’s failure to win the Triple Crown in 2012 and the subsequent Godolphin steroid doping scandal. He has done enough in two runs this year to suggest he will win for the first time since Doncaster.
Newmarket 2.55 Godolphin’s two main Newmarket stables both field a fancied runner here but Shagah, another from the increasingly powerful Al Shaqab operation, improved when third in the May Hill last time out and may have the measure of both.
Redcar 3.05 Limato will not be much of a price to see off a big field but he stands out on form having barely broken sweat in beating Cotai Glory – who lines up in Sunday’s Prix de l’Abbaye at Longchamp – at Newbury last time out. Cotai Glory would have been a two-length winner of the Flying Childers Stakes but for swerving and unseating his rider in the final strides and Limato will be very hard to beat if he arrives here in anything like his Newbury form.
Ascot 3.15 Louis The Pious steps up to Group Three company after his comfortable success in the Ayr Gold Cup and has the big field of opponents that seems to bring out the best in him. There is often not much between the best sprint handicappers and the Pattern performers, and while Danzeno is another horse on the way up, David O’Meara’s runner is narrowly preferred.
Newmarket 3.30 Miss France returns to the scene of her 1,000 Guineas victory at the start of the season but has struggled to back up the form in two subsequent runs. Sky Lantern, the 2013 Guineas winner, has been below her best this season and Fintry, winner of a Group Two at Chantilly in early June, could be ready to take the step up to the highest grade.
