Fleeting Spirit for Golden Jubilee celebration
The Golden Jubilee Stakes has drawn a high-class field from across the world for the Group One highlight of the final day of Royal Ascot.
However, with a bumper field of 24 – the biggest in the last 10 years - it is the local geography that could prove the most decisive factor. The much-debated straight-course draw comes into the equation, which works against Showcasing (stall one), Marchand D’Or (three) Starspangledbanner (four), Happy Zero (eight) and Kinsale King (nine).
Fleeting Spirit appears to have the best of the draw, breaking from stall 21, but there could be a perceived drawback in the fact that the mare has not run for 224 days. In fact she won first time out in her first two seasons and was beaten just three-quarters of a length in the King’s Stand Stakes on her first start of last season, and Fleeting Spirit may well be better over six furlongs than five.
Sir Michael Stoute’s run with his Group-race runners, which stands as a 30% strike-rate for the season, can continue with Harbinger in the Group Two Hardwicke Stakes.
Harbinger did his bit for those figures when he won the Group Three John Porter Stakes at Newbury in April and then beat Age Of Aquarius by one-and-a-half lengths in the Group Three Ormonde Stakes at Chester last month. Fast ground may be a slight issue for this big, powerful colt but he is at least 5lbs clear on adjusted official handicap ratings.
Richard Hannon has won the Chesham Stakes for the last two years and can make that a hat-trick with King Torus. The colt’s breeding – by Oratorio out of Mujadil mare –looks solid enough in terms of stamina for the step up from six furlongs.
He took a little time to get going on his debut run, at Leicester three weeks ago, but picked up quickly in the final two furlongs to win by five lengths.
Sir Winston Churchill, a keen racing man, once described Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” but he could just as easily have been talking about the Wokingham Stakes. The high-drawn horses have dominated the last three renewals while the drawn low held sway for the three years previous to that and the result of the Britannia Stakes – where the winner came from stall 27 but the second, third and fourth were drawn two, four and 10 respectively, which could make for yet another revision over whether there is a high-draw bias on the straight course.
Noverre To Go, who is drawn in stall 27, is a course and distance winner who ran well again at Ascot six weeks ago. He followed that up with a career-best win at Newmarket at the end of the May and looks the right type for this race, but it could also pay to follow Striking Spirit, another course and distance winner, who has been threatening to put in a big race with his recent runs.
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