Willie Mullins is in pursuit of Gold Cup history at Royal Ascot on Thursday, although it could ultimately prove to be a different kind of landmark for jockey David Egan.
Never has a trainer saddled a winner of both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Ascot Gold Cup in one year.
The legendary Vincent O’Brien is the only one to win both races. He landed flat racing’s most famous staying prize in 1958 with Gladness, five years after the last of his four victories in steeplechasing’s blue riband event.
Having topped and tailed Tuesday’s action with a ride in the royal carriage and victory in the finale with Vauban, Mullins, who prepared Galopin Des Champs to win at Cheltenham in March, now has a shot at an unprecedented cross-code double.
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Echoes In Rain is officially the lowest rated among 14 starters for Ascot’s day three highlight, although shorter odds than almost half the field indicate how players are taking no chance with any Mullins runner this week, never mind the most valuable stamina test of all.
The mare has won nine of her 23 starts across the codes including twice at the highest level over hurdles, a total that might have been more without regularly bumping into a certain Honeysuckle.
Runner-up in last year’s Irish Cesarewitch, Echoes In Rain was also the one to finally deliver Patrick Mullins success in Galway’s amateur Derby prize last summer.
Whether such a profile would merit general 12-1 odds without having WP Mullins next to her name is debatable, although that link is likely to be enough to convince many punters of her chance.
Aidan O’Brien’s eight victories in the last 17 years means Emily Dickinson’s odds probably also reflect her connections more than actual accomplishment to date.
That Ryan Moore is on board her rather than such an admirable horse as Broome is significant though in a contest where the final half-mile will be virgin ground for so many of these.
The exceptions to that are the 2021 winner Subjectivist, who looked to have the division at his mercy after that performance only for injury to intervene, and the likely favourite Coltrane.
The latter landed last year’s Ascot Stakes and impressed at the track again on his reappearance in last month’s Sagaro.
That is a traditional trial for the race and the St Leger was often a good indicator of future success too during the Gold Cup’s period as flat racing’s supreme prize.
That is long since in the past and of the last six Leger winners to contest the Gold Cup only Leading Light in 2014 emerged on top.
Nevertheless, Eldar Eldarov tries to pull off the double under jockey David Egan, who has a family Gold Cup milestone of his own to aim at.
The 24-year-old rider is a grandson of the late Dessie Hughes who famously rode Davy Lad to Gold Cup glory at Cheltenham in 1977.
Egan, whose father John is a Classic winning jockey too, and whose mother, Sandra, trained Thunder And Roses to win an Irish Grand National, landed the Queen’s Vase on Eldar Eldarov at last year’s meeting.
Runner-up in last month’s Yorkshire Cup, the form of that race has been boosted since and Egan said: “He took on race-fitter rivals at York last month after a long layoff. It wasn’t that he needed the run fitness wise; he was just a bit rusty mentally.
“With the way he travelled and finished so strongly he goes there with as good a chance as any.”
Eldar Eldarov shapes as a potential spoilsport to Mullins’s hopes of winning a prize he got within a neck of a decade ago when Simenon almost wrecked Estimate’s famous royal result.
Elsewhere, racing opens with a Norfolk Stakes where major confidence is flush behind both Elite Status and American Rascal.
In such circumstances there could be betting value in siding with Noche Magica to give trainer Paddy Twomey a first Royal Ascot success.
Co Tyrone trainer Andy Oliver saddled a one-two at the Curragh last month through Betterdayscoming and Semblance Of Order.
The latter lines up at Leopardstown’s evening fixture while his stable companion might prove up to giving Oliver his own maiden Ascot victory in the Britannia Handicap.
