ASCOT and Great British Racing chiefs are brimming in anticipation that next Saturday’s Qipco British Champions Day will be the day when Aidan O’Brien breaks Bobby Frankel’s Group/Grade 1 record of 25 winners in a calendar year.

The Ballydoyle handler is currently on the 23-winner mark and may well break the record this weekend as he has Group 1 chances in Australia, Britain and Canada.

Should O’Brien equal or break the record next Saturday, Nick Smith, Ascot’s director of racing and communications, has promised the racecourse will mark the occasion.

There are four Group 1 races on British Champions Day and O’Brien is likely to have runners in all of them.

Winter, who has contributed four Group 1 victories to her trainer’s haul already this season, is likely to go for the Champion Stakes where she will probably take on Cracksman, who curiously missed the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, having won the Prix Niel.

Churchill, who has yet to win since completing a 2000 Guineas double at the Curragh in May, is likely to run back over a mile in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Ribchester, going for his fourth Group 1 of the season, is the ante-post favourite over a course and distance he has already won over.

Also set to take his chance in the mile contest is the seriously progressive Beat The Bank, who earlier in the year won a Dundalk maiden for Curragh trainer Darren Bunyan, and has since won four of his five starts for Andrew Balding and Leicester City FC chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.

SPRINT REMATCH

The race of the day could well be the British Champions Sprint which features a rematch between O’Brien’s Caravaggio and the Godolphin-owned Harry Angel.

Caravaggio got the better of Harry Angel over this course and distance in the Commonwealth Cup but has since faltered and only recently gotten his season back on track with a Group 2 win at the Curragh on Irish Champions Weekend.

In contrast Harry Angel returns to Ascot off the back of Group 1 wins in the July Cup at Newmarket and Sprint Cup at Haydock.

OTHER RUNNERS

Elsewhere O’Brien could be represented by Rhododendron and/or Seventh Heaven in the British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes. Eziyra, who won the Group 3 Enterprise Stakes when last seen at Leopardstown, could also take her chance for Dermot Weld in a race which the likely favourite could be John Gosden’s Journey, won ran away with the 12-furlong contest last season.

The card begins with the Group 2 British Champions Long Distance Cup which could finally see the Order Of St George-Big Orange rematch.

The latter’s trainer Michael Bell will again be keeping a close eye on ground conditions for his popular six-year-old, who needs a decent surface to be seen at his best.

The current forecast is for largely dry conditions next week.