“THE softest and the wettest I’ve seen it,” was the ground summary from Ascot clerk of the course Chris Stickels earlier this week when he reported that 134mm had hit the track since September 21st.

With the round course waterlogged, Stickels announced on Wednesday that three races - the Fillies & Mares, the Long Distance Cup and the Champion Stakes - would be moved to the inner hurdles course which is actually riding good to soft. However it remains heavy on the straight course and stamina will be at a premium.

The likelihood of a testing surface hasn’t dissuaded trainers from running their horses today as a total of 74 will take their chance across the six races, with 17 in the Champions Sprint and 16 in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

The latter is a fascinating contest as it features a number of horses who made a big impact at the beginning of the season but have been rarely seen since. None more so than 2000 Guineas winner Magna Grecia who hasn’t been seen since attempting a Guineas double at the Curragh.

The horse he beat at Newmarket, King Of Change, has only been seen once since, winning a Group 3 at Sandown while Mohaather, who looked a Guineas contender after winning the Greenham in April, makes his belated reappearance today.

With punters latching on to the prospect of soft ground, all the money this week has been for French raider The Revenant, who will bid to give Arc winning jockey Pierre-Charles Boudot another big race success. Boudot teams up with Francis-Henri Graffard and the pair secured a significant win earlier this season with Watch Me in the Coronation Stakes.

Champion Stakes

BELIEVE it or not but Aidan O’Brien has never won the Qipco Champion Stakes. He has come close in recent seasons - Found finished second two years running in 2015 and 2016 and earlier So You Think was favourite in 2011 but found Cirrus Des Aigles too good on the day.

O’Brien has another favourite today, Magical, who will be having her ninth run this season. She is clear on ratings and this looks like a penalty kick for the mare but the big question is how much did that gruelling Arc run, in which she raced close to a searching pace, have an effect on her now.

Addeybb and Coronet have attracted money on account of the soft ground but what a story it would be if Deirdre could win another Group 1. The Nassau Stakes winner was arguably unlucky not to beat Magical in the Irish equivalent of this race and gets a chance of revenge today.

Up for the Challenge

IN many ways Make A Challenge has been the story of the season already. Denis Hogan’s four-year-old gelding began his season in a Limerick maiden in April, rated just 66. Six wins and 175 days later, he takes on today’s Group 1 Champion Sprint Stakes off a 45lb higher mark.

“He had big problems with loading earlier in the year,” Hogan explains. “I think it largely went unnoticed but in that Limerick maiden, he just about went in and then gave away 12 lengths at the start. Joey Sheridan was riding him and he went from 12 lengths adrift to looking like he might win in the straight. It was then when we started really working on him with the stalls at home and lads in the yard did a brilliant job. He has just improved and improved since then.”

It cost £40,000 to put Make A Challenge into the Group 1 and he has 16 rivals to face but he is a general 6/1 shot to give the Tipperary trainer his biggest ever success and round off a remarkable season.

“We felt he deserved to take his chance,” said Hogan. “It was a lot of money to supplement him but with the way he won his listed race on Sunday, with the way he came out of the race and with the soft ground, we thought it was worth having a go.”

One Cool Poet, the other big story horse of the season, is also running today at Leopardstown. Matthew Smith’s seven-year-old gelding has won four of his last five, improving 34lbs in the process, and is reunited with Billy Lee for the Listed Trigo Stakes.

Compiled by Ronan Groome