Qipco British Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday October 18th will feature four of the top ten horses in the world as Ombudsman, Field Of Gold, Delacroix and Calandagan headline the confirmations for the five Group 1 races made on Monday.

The £1.3m Qipco Champion Stakes looks like being one of the races of the year with the world’s top-rated horse, Ombudsman, leading 15 confirmations for the ten-furlong contest. The Godolphin-owned four-year-old’s ongoing rivalry with Coolmore’s Delacroix will be settled at Ascot on Saturday with the Aidan O’Brien-trained three-year-old also confirmed for the race – the series between the two currently stands at 1-1. This year’s Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner Calandagan, who was second in this race in 2024, will bid to go one better this year, meaning that this year’s Qipco Champion Stakes will feature three of the eight best turf horses in the world according to the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings. Economics will have his first run of the season in Saturday’s showpiece having last been seen in this contest last year, where he finished a close-up sixth. The two supplementary entries for the race are Devil’s Advocate for Godolphin and John & Thady Gosden, as an intended pacemaker for Ombudsman, and First Look, the Andre Fabre-trained four-year-old who won the Group 2 Prix Dollar at the Arc meeting.