3 minute read

Once again, Ascot’s Champions Day promises to deliver on its billing, with the four Group 1 races featuring an array of high-class, proven top-level performers.

The Sprint Stakes sees the much-anticipated clash between an outstanding pair of three-year-old sprinters in triple-Group 1-winning Muhaarar and the highly-progressive Sprint Cup winner Twilight Son. In the Queen Elizabeth II dual-2000 Guineas winner Gleneagles could finally take on Solow, who is bidding for his fifth successive Group 1 victory, while Irish Derby winner Jack Hobbs looks set to take all the beating in the feature race, the Champion Stakes.

The day as a whole looks one to relish for Flat fans, but ante-post markets for the Sprint Stakes, Queen Elizabeth II, and the Champion Stakes do not appear to contain many obvious betting angles for taking on the big guns. In that regard, the Fillies & Mares Stakes – which is currently 4/1 the field – looks the best of the four Group 1 contests on Champions Day from a betting perspective, and is therefore where we’ll focus for this week’s ante-post preview.

The openness of the market for the Fillies & Mares Stakes is not the result of a sub-standard renewal, either, with last year’s winner Madame Chiang facing a tough task to defend her crown from the likes of Covert Love, Arabian Queen, Simple Verse, and Tapestry, who all bring Group 1-winning form to the table.

Irish Oaks heroine Covert Love is expected to be turned out just two weeks after recording her second victory at Group 1 level in the Prix de L’Opera, where she again impressed with her attitude under another excellent ride from Pat Smullen. That Longchamp run was a career-best effort for Covert Love, and her straightforward, front-running style means she is sure to run her race once again on Saturday so long as the turnaround from Longchamp doesn’t affect her. Whether she represents value against a stronger field in this race is debateable, however.

French raider Sea Calisi is certainly worth a mention here on the back of her Yorkshire Oaks form, where she was arguably unlucky to finish third behind Pleascach (Covert Love in second), having had to make her challenge from much further back than the front pair in a muddling race. Sea Calisi built on that run on her next start in the Prix Vermeille when third behind Treve - which represented a career-best effort on Timeform Ratings - and she has strong claims of reversing form with Covert Love here, should things fall differently.

Sea Calisi is not the only interesting French filly set to line-up here, though. Alain de Royer-Dupre’s Candarliya was ahead of Sea Calisi in the Vermeille, and although she too was also no match for Treve, she took another step forward in her highly-progressive season. Candarliya’s profile is not dissimilar to her stablemate Dolniya, who progressed through the second half of last season (third in the Vermeille) and made her breakthough at the highest level in the Dubai Sheema Classic earlier this year.

Candarliya didn’t have to come near to her Vermeille form to win the Group 2 Prix de Royallieu on Arc weekend, but that serves to illustrate that her best is good enough to be competitive in races like this and, of course, as a horse that has won five of her last six she could yet be improving. That she’s made this progress away from the biggest stages would appear to explain why she is available at much bigger odds than the Group 1 winners she faces despite having form that’s just as good.

There are other doubts for some of those with comparable form, too, this trip arguably sharp enough for St Leger winner Simple Verse and still an unknown quantity for shock Juddmonte winner Arabian Queen, who flopped in the Vermeille. With Tapestry also having something to prove after her poor performance in the Arc, this race begins to look like a three-way choice between the closely-matched Covert Love, Sea Calisi and Candarliya. With an equally attractive profile and at a bigger price, Alain de Royer-Dupre’s filly becomes the sensible betting option in what could be one of the most exciting contests of the whole day.

Recommended bet:

Back Candarliya in the British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes