Horse Racing Betting Tips: Back Cracksman for repeat Champion Stakes success
ASCOT once again stages QIPCO British Champions Day tomorrow which now marks the end of the British Flat racing season.
The race to be crowned Stobart Champion Jockey was in truth over months ago with Silvestre de Sousa well clear in his pursuit of a third title.
John Gosden is all set to bag the trainers’ championship and his CRACKSMAN can cap another memorable season by landing the QIPCO Champion Stakes (3.50pm).
He ran out an emphatic winner of this Group One prize 12 months ago relishing the soft ground.
The deluge of rain that hit Berkshire last weekend will have been music to the ears of his connections with the ground likely to ride soft at best, even with dry weather now forecast.
Things haven’t gone according to plan so far this campaign after a promising reappearance victory in the Prix Ganay at Longchamp.
He followed that by scrambling home by a head at Epsom in the Coronation Cup when appearing to race lazily throughout.
Connections then opted to run him on unsuitably fast ground at the Royal meeting back in June where he failed to catch Poet’s Word in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes.
Having had nearly four months on the sidelines waiting for the heavens to open, Cracksman arrives here a fresh horse having missed both the King George and Arc because of quick ground.
He will have been trained to peak tomorrow with the addition of cheekpieces likely to sharpen him up too.
Crystal Ocean looks the most obvious one to pick up the pieces should he underperform, but that seems highly unlikely and he looks worth supporting at 4/5 with Coral.
Gosden also holds a very strong hand in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (3.15pm), the other feature race on Ascot’s star-studded card.
His triple Group One winner Roaring Lion is now favourite to make it four successive wins at the highest level despite dropping back to one mile for the first time since being well beaten in the 2000 Guineas in May.
There is no doubting his quality, but his ability to handle the ground has to be a worry and I’m prepared to leave him alone at the current prices.
Earlier in the week I was keen to side with either Lord Glitters or Addeybb at
either 8/1 or 12/1 respectively, but those fancy prices have long gone now that the rain has come.
Lord Glitters has been my idea of the winner of this race since he ran such a cracker on his seasonal reappearance when second in the Queen Anne Stakes at the Royal meeting.
He loves the track and the rain-softened ground, but is very short now and I’m worried he has only had a month to get over a hard race on fast ground in Canada last month.
Laurens has been sensational all season, but this is the softest surface she has faced, and all her recent races may just catch up with her.
One horse that has been friendless in the market in the build up to tomorrow’s race is French raider RECOLETOS and he looks the one to be on now he has hit 6/1.
Fourth to Cracksman in last season’s Champion Stakes, he has thrived since reverting to this trip.
Having won the Group One Prix d’Ispahan at Longchamp back in May, things didn’t go well in the Queen Anne Stakes at the Royal meeting where his temperament seemingly got the better of him.
However, it emerged afterwards that the reason he got so upset was that a vet had come to take a sample from him a couple of hours before the race and that made him go completely crazy.
Since then he has chased Alpha Centauri home in the Group One Prix Jacques le Marois and landed the Group One Prix du Moulin last time.
That form makes him the one to beat here and his ability to handle both the bad ground and stay well are two huge positives.
POINTERS SATURDAY
Recoletos 3.15pm Ascot
Cracksman 3.50pm Ascot