It's Round 3 for Bow Echo and Gstaad in Wednesday's Sussex Stakes at Goodwood. The two classic winners are among a field of 12 declared for the £1.5 million one-mile Group 1 race.
Bow Echo has come out on top in both of their previous encounters, decisively so in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket but only by a nose in the St James's Palace Stakes at Newmarket.
Trained by George Boughey and to be ridden, as usual, by Billy Loughnane, Bow Echo remains unbeaten in five lifetime starts and is the 5/4 favourite to preserve that record on Wednesday.
Aidan O’Brien has saddled six winners of the Sussex Stakes, one short of the record set by Sir Henry Cecil, and Gstaad looks the best of his three challengers on Wednesday. Ryan Moore stays loyal to the Irish 2000 Guineas winner.
Puerto Rico and possible pacemaker Dorset are his other contenders.
William Buick is relishing the prospect of Opera Ballo taking on the two Guineas winners who will be facing their elders for the first time.
One of those older rivals is the Charlie Appleby-trained Opera Ballo, who set out to make all the running in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot last month before being caught late on by the shock winner Ten Bob Tony and More Thunder, beaten just three-quarters of a length into third place.
“It’s always been the plan since the Queen Anne to go to the Sussex and he’s a very talented horse,” said Buick.
“To do what he did in the Queen Anne into a headwind was a tough thing to do, but Goodwood is a different track.
“He’s taking on the best three-year-olds and in the Sussex you always find out how the younger horses stand against their elders. It’s going to be a fascinating race and it’s not going to be easy for anyone.”
Having broken his top-level duck in Dubai during the winter, Buick is hopeful he can get that first Group 1 win on home soil at some stage.
He added: “We think Opera Ballo is a Group 1 horse and we think he has put up performances this year in this country that show he is.
“He’s always had a very good attitude, but I suppose sometimes he just gives a little bit too much of himself. We’ve learned a bit about him now and hopefully he’s learned as well.”
Ed Walker’s Ten Bob Tony gets the chance to prove his Queen Anne triumph was no fluke, while Eve Johnson Houghton’s stable star Zavateri makes his first appearance since finishing second in the Greenham Stakes in April.
The declarations also include Lake Forest (William Haggas) and last year's 150/1 winner Qirat (Ralph Beckett), both of whom are also declared to run 24 hours earlier in the Lennox Stakes.
Docklands (Harry Eustace), Never So Brave (Andrew Balding) and Seagulls Eleven (Hugo Palmer) complete the line-up.
SUSSEX STAKES
Current betting: 5/4 Bow Echo, 100/30 Opera Ballo, 7/2 Gstaad, 16 Ten Bob Tony, 20 Zavateri, 25 Lake Forest, 33 Never So Brave, 50 Docklands, Puerto Rico, 66 Qirat, Seagulls Eleven, 150 Dorset.