At a time when British racing’s insecurity has prompted strike action next month, Wednesday’s start to York’s Ebor festival is a timely shot in the arm.
Last year’s Juddmonte International, memorably won by City Of Troy, was officially judged the best race run in the world in 2024. It was the third time in a decade it achieved such status and come the time when such handicapping tots are done again this winter, it’s no long shot that a similar ranking will emerge again.
The gong is essentially decided by averaging the peak rating of the first four horses in the most illustrious and valuable races on the planet. A year ago, City Of Troy beat Calandagan, Ghostwriter and the subsequent Arc heroine Bluestocking in a vintage renewal.
There were 13 runners in that Juddmonte and there will be only six this time, including a pacemaker. Among the other handful, however, lies the potential to have post-season handicap calculators whirring.
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Rarely has the International title looked more apt. Aidan O’Brien is pursuing a record-extending eighth success with his Eclipse hero Delacroix, while Godolphin will be confident their Ombudsman can reverse that Sandown form. France supplies the unbeaten Daryz and Japan’s Danon Decile is the ultimate unknown quantity.
Even See The Fire, who won by a dozen lengths on her last York run and whose owner won this with a 50-1 shot a decade ago, can hardly be dismissed.
It’s a showpiece event that brings top global talent to what is perhaps Britain’s finest and fairest racecourse at the peak of a summer campaign. Unlike comparative “coronation” renewals, such as when Frankel or Sea The Stars won this race, this is a competitive prospect to relish.
That makes for an opportune confidence boost to a cross-channel sector facing into a self-imposed blank day on September 10th. That is due to deep unease at the prospect of UK government tax harmonisation between sports betting and casino-type gambling.
It is a dry technical argument that may, in the eyes of the general public, look like a sport and industry with an elitist image making the case for bookmaker corporations paying less tax. Hardly a recipe for widespread sympathy.
In comparison, elite competition is an easy sell, whatever the sport, and come 3.35pm on Wednesday that’s the prospect around the historic Knavesmire.
Just a neck separated Delacroix and Ombudsman at the end of a dramatic Eclipse last month, when neither had anything but a straightforward passage through the race.
Ombudsman, who previously enjoyed a dream set-up in Royal Ascot’s Prince Of Wales’s Stakes, was always doing just that little bit too much at Sandown. Despite that, he still looked the winner until getting dramatically nabbed inside the final 50 metres by Delacroix.
That represented a major step-up in performance level by the Ballydoyle colt. A Derby flop at Epsom, nothing he’d previously done suggested a talent capable of overcoming events that conspired to leave him last with just over a furlong to go.
That he ultimately still swept home suggested an exceptional talent contained within a superb physique and belied any nagging doubts about temperament issues. If Delacroix can repeat that level of form, or improve on it, he could wind up ranking high among O’Brien’s best ever.
The Ombudsman team were left ruing the absence of a pacemaker at Sandown and won’t repeat the blunder this time. But even if Birr Castle wasn’t in the line-up, last year’s Japanese Derby hero Danon Decile probably would force the pace issue anyway.
His Dubai defeat of Calandagan and Rebel’s Romance is a form tie-up to the best in Europe. Japan’s global dominance of recent years means Danon Decile will only be underestimated by the foolish.
Francis-Henri Graffard’s rapid ascent to the top of the tree in France has been underlined by major success in England, including with Calandagan in last month’s King George. His decision to pitch Daryz into such hot company looks significant.
The Aga Khan Studs colt is unbeaten in four this season including at Group Two level last time. As of now, he’s something of a dark horse. By the end of this race to relish, he could be anything but.
