Jockey JP O'Brien hopes Excelebration to beat Frankel in Queen Anne Stakes at Ascot
Frankel has a wonderful track record against Excelebration, as he has beaten him four times, including in the Lockinge last month. The two dashing runners are once again up against each other, this time in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes (British Champions
Series), being held at Royal Ascot on Tuesday, June 19th.
Despite admitting the fact that it would be an uphill task for Excelebration to stamp Frankel, J. P. O'Brien is expecting his runner to come up with an excellent effort this time.
A. P. O'Brien’s son rode the 4-year-old on his winning trip at Curragh before suffering a 5-length defeat to Frankel at Newbury last month. The son of Exceed And Excel was pretty impressive all the way through, but failed to trouble the winner, who easily
grabbed his sixth Group 1 victory.
JP O'Brien described that Excelebration has done plenty of good work since his last outing at Newbury and therefore, he is in better position to do some damage today.
"Obviously it's going to be difficult to turn the form around as Frankel is an exceptional horse, but if you're not in, you can't win. He hasn't done a lot since his last race but hopefully he'll come on for it," he said.
On good to soft, Frankel is going to face 10 quality runners in the 1-mile event, which will be started at 14:30 (GMT). Besides the aforementioned pair, the confirmed entries are: Strong Suit, Helmet, Side Glance, Worthadd, Premio Loco, Red Jazz, Indomito,
Bullet Train and Windsor Palace.
Charles Hills is also expecting his charge, Red Jazz, to grab some money place in the class-1 meeting. The handler was not reluctant to concede that with Frankel in the line-up, Red Jazz will be in the race for the runner-up spot.
"Obviously with Frankel running we are part of the race for second. His last race at Haydock was a bit of a mystery to us as Michael (Hills) said he never fired on the day. He's been fine since and we're hoping for a good run from a horse who is usually
pretty consistent," he told http://www.charleshills.com/.
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