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BREEDERS’ CUP TURF
(1m 4f, turf, 11.37pm)
HE couldn’t do it, could he? Highland Reel, the bravest and one of the best of all middle-distance horses, figures to deliver a peak effort in defence of his Breeders’ Cup Turf crown.
Aidan O’Brien has done it before with High Chaparral in 2002 and 2003. Why not again?
Highland Reel gave typically game pursuit in the Berkshire slop as Cracksman smashed through the 130 barrier in the Champion Stakes at Ascot. People can cogitate about the worth of the form, but the clock does not lie (after conditions and pace are taken into account) and 2m 11.75 stood out. In a turf war on his kind of terrain, Highland Reel will bring everything to the fight.
Let’s replay the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Ascot: Sir Michael Stoute’s Ulysses, third in last year’s Turf at Santa Anita, launched a furious charge at Highland Reel. But the son of Galileo, on the sharp end throughout, turned him away with such a heavy counterpunch that he drew off again to win by a length and a quarter, while Decorated Knight caught Ulysses for second. Both the placed horses are Group 1 winners since.
For his part, Ulysses – another son of Galileo – has seemed to outstrip his Royal Ascot running on more than one occasion since. He has more tactical speed than the champ, but there are two concerns: first, the question of whether he can stay with Highland Reel at the end of a well-run mile and a half; second, his pattern is the opposite of Highland Reel’s: he has run hard several times without much of a break.
If these two behemoths misfire, it is a wide-open race. O’Brien also fields underachiever Cliffs Of Moher and high-class filly Seventh Heaven. The latter, fourth in the Filly & Mare Turf last year, is a strong stayer, lacking sufficient middle-pace, but her last two runs have been on unsuitably soft going.
Of the home team, Arlington Million winner Beach Patrol is clearly the one. He only scrambled home at Arlington from Fanciful Angel, but ran a lot faster to hack up in the Grade 1 Turf Classic at Belmont last time – his first try at the full mile and a half.
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