Elliptical to serve Butler well in Cambridgeshire
Having won the race twice in the last three years, and with three runners in this year’s renewal, it is little surprise that John Gosden has the market leader for the totesport.com Cambridgeshire at Newmarket.
There can be cases made for all three of Gosden’s runners – High Twelve, Taqleed and Nationalism – but it is Nationalism who has caught the public’s imagination.
The three-year-old is clearly progressive, could well turn out to be Group-race class and, on breeding, should be able to handle testing conditions. However, he is drawn low, in stall three, on a track that can favour the high-drawn horses on soft ground.
That brings Gerard Butler’s runner, Elliptical, into play from stall 20. The four-year-old has soft-ground form, winning at Salisbury last year, and has been a changed horse since the decision to apply waiting tactics for his last three starts.
His second to Forte Dei Marmi at Newbury last month, in a race that has often proved a good trial for the Cambridgeshire, looks rock-solid form and Christophe Soumillon is a shrewd jockey booking for this type of horse.
The quality on the card is supplied by the Group One Kingdom of Bahrain Sun Chariot Stakes but the recent results of this race suggest that shock winners are not such a rarity as normally in championship-level contests.
Aviate showed speed when she won the Group Two Musidora Stakes at York in May. She did not stay in the Oaks and may well have needed the run at the Curragh three weeks ago but, at a point in the season when others may have had enough, she can deliver on the promise that she has shown.
The card gets underway with a couple of valuable two-year-old races. Together, beaten a neck by White Moonstone in the Group One Fillies’ Mile at Ascot last week, should make the most of the drop in class for the Tattersalls Millions 2YO Fillies' Trophy while State Opera, an impressive winner at Hamilton Park last month, can win the Tattersalls Millions 2YO Trophy.
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