Kodi Bear will be a contender on day one of Royal Ascot next week, according to his trainer, Clive Cox, who believes the star of his Lambourn stable has a legitimate excuse for his disappointing reappearance run. The four-year-old was fancied for the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury last month and travelled well through the first half of the race but faded into a well-held seventh of 12.
“He slightly fooled me before Newbury,” Cox admitted between races here on Tuesday. “He was working so well and his galloping companions were winning Group races. I thought he was ready but, as it turned out, he needed the run. He’s been really pleasing me since then.”
Kodi Bear will be confirmed for the Queen Anne Stakes at this week’s entry stage with Cox clearly believing him to be capable of outrunning his odds of 25-1 and perhaps turning around the Newbury form with Belardo, third in the betting for the Ascot race.
Tuesday could be one of the biggest days in Cox’s career, since he also has legitimate contenders for the other two Group Ones on the Royal meeting’s opening card. Profitable heads the betting at 7-1 for the King’s Stand Stakes, while Zonderland will take his chance in the St James’s Palace Stakes, for which 20-1 is available.
“Profitable’s in great form,” Cox said. “He’s pleased me very much since his Temple Stakes win. Likewise Zonderland, I was very pleased with his Listed success at Sandown. We’ve always held him in high regard. When he was sixth in the Guineas, I think everyone could see that didn’t enjoy running into The Dip.
“He was far more at home around Sandown and I’m very happy with the route that he’s taking. I’m very proud to be associated with these horses that all, individually, belong at that level.”
Cox says he has no great ground preference for Kodi Bear, whose best form has been on a wet surface, and points out that the colt won a Listed race on good to firm at Windsor last summer. But the forecast suggests that fast ground is unlikely, with some rain due on most days over the next week and perhaps in significant quantities at the weekend.
Ascot’s going is good, according to its clerk, Chris Stickels, who added yesterday that he does not expect to water the track over the next few days if the current forecast proves accurate.
Ralph Beckett was another who was mulling Ascot plans here and the Andover trainer has decided the meeting will come too soon for two of his classy fillies who failed to make the frame at Epsom over the weekend. Diamonds Pour Moi is reported to have no lasting effects from losing her coordination so badly in the Oaks that she had to be pulled up but will now be given a bit of time to get over it, while the next part of Simple Verse’s campaign will revolve around getting her to the Yorkshire Oaks in peak condition after she was fourth in the Coronation Cup.
Beckett’s Ascot squad will be led by Carntop, narrowly beaten in Lingfield’s Derby Trial by Humphrey Bogart, form which looks useful in light of the winner having since been fifth in the Derby itself. “He’s still a work in progress,” Beckett said of Carntop, who is 8-1 second-favourite for the King Edward VII Stakes a week on Friday. “He’s a tall, gangly sort of horse but this would appear to be the right race for him.”
ITV is expected to confirm this week that Ed Chamberlin has been signed up to front the channel’s coverage of racing, to begin in January. Other members of the team will not be confirmed until next month, after the completion of Euro 2016.
