As we head to the back end of the flat season, all eyes turn back to Royal Ascot where they unveil another fantastic weekend of racing. Aidan O’Brien is by far the most successful trainer around at the moment. It helps to have not only the best horses but the best facilities and the best jockeys. Maybe a little luck of the Irish helps too!
So this weekend he’s pulling out all the stops as he hopes to replicate his 1-2-3 in the Arc de Triomphe, where he bagged a cool £3.36 Million. Not too shabby! So back to Saturday, it’s not just at Ascot that Ballydoyle is being represented at, there is racing in Ireland and he has around twenty-five entries in all. Most of them are doubled or trebled up in races, which is one of his favourite tactics, stablemates running together and it works.
Back to Ascot on Saturday, at 1.25 in the Qipco British champions Long Distance Cup, Order of St George is running, ridden by Ryan Moore. This is a Group one race and Order of st George has been dropped down a few furlongs, but this won’t bother him. Odds on Order of St George today are 4/6 with Paddy Power. Last time out he came third, but Moore is back with him today and O’Brien will be expecting him to pull this off.
Then on to the British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes, where the treble comes into play, O’Brien has three horses running in this race, Even Song, Pretty Perfect and Seventh Heaven. Seventh Heaven is ridden by Moore and is the bookies favourite, but get your bets on early as she still has odds of 2/1 with Coral. Pretty Perfect is ridden by Seammie Heffernan with odds of 25/1 with Bet365 which is great odds to get on at. Last but by no means least, is Even Song, ridden by Jaime Spencer and with odds of 25/1 with William Hill.
This is set to be another fantastic day of racing and I will update you tomorrow on the other races and entries, with a look at the Irish races and see if O’Brien can beat Bobby Frankel's record of 25 grade 1 races in a season on the flat.
Good Luck today.