Horse Racing Betting Tips: The Revenant to produce an Oscar-winning performance
WHEN the first ever QIPCO British Champions Day was staged at Ascot back in 2011, the sceptics raised concerns at the time about the risk of heavy ground spoiling the end of season finale.
To be honest, the weather has largely behaved itself over the last eight years, with plenty of wet renewals but not enough rain has fallen to ever really spoil the occasion.
However, the management team at Ascot have been thoroughly tested this week and parts of the course were left waterlogged in places after 30mm of rain last weekend.
The decision was taken on Wednesday to switch the races due to be run on the round course to the inner flat course which hadn’t been watered during the summer.
That won’t affect the £1.1million Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (3.20pm) which remains on the straight mile where the ground is officially heavy.
Those conditions will be of no concern to the connections of THE REVENANT who has only tasted defeat once in eight starts since switching from Hugo Palmer’s yard to be trained in France by Francis-Henri Graffard.
The softer the better for the four-year-old who has posted a string of impressive victories on ground described as very soft or heavy in that period.
On his latest start, he was an effortless winner of the Group Two Prix Daniel Wildenstein at Longchamp on Arc weekend where he spread-eagled a small but talented field.
A reproduction of that performance would make him very hard to beat here and he looks the call at 11/4 with Coral.
His trainer tasted success at Royal Ascot in June with Watch Me, while his Arc-winning jockey, Pierre-Charles Boudot, couldn’t be in better form.
If there is a concern, it is whether that race on terrible ground will have left a mark, but the truth is it shouldn’t have as he seemed to do it so effortlessly.
Regular followers of this column will know I have a soft spot for LORD GLITTERS and it is hard to leave David O’Meara’s gelding out of the equation.
His last two starts have been a little underwhelming, but I’m not sure Goodwood suits him and the extended 1m2½f trip of the Juddmonte International seemed to stretch him last time.
He arrives here a fresher horse than 12 months ago where he wasn’t beaten far in sixth behind Roaring Lion.
That run came less than a month after a gruelling trip to Canada where the fast ground may have just left its mark.
He has been kept fresh for this end of season target since August and with form figures of 212261 at Ascot, including this year’s Group One Queen Anne Stakes, he should be bang there on ground he handles well.
Aidan O’Brien always has to be respected in these top-level contests and the master of Ballydoyle saddles QIPCO 2000 Guineas winner Magna Grecia who hasn’t been seen since bombing out in the Irish equivalent back in May.
It would be some training performance to bring him back on the softest ground he has ever encountered but if one man can do it it’s O’Brien.
He has been well-backed in the lead-up, but I’d rather look for something at a bigger each-way price for my final selection.
Andrew Balding’s HAPPY POWER is available at a massive 33/1 and that looks too big seeing as he has won both of his starts on soft ground this season.
Bolting up in a seven furlong handicap at Newbury on his seasonal reappearance, two starts later he was winning the Listed Ganton Stakes at York in decent style.
He was then narrowly denied third place in the Group One Sussex Stakes behind Too Darn Hot at Glorious Goodwood, and a repeat of that effort could see him sneak into the places.
BILL ESDAILE’S Queen Elizabeth II Stakes 1-2-3
1. The Revenant
2. Lord Glitters
3. Happy Power