“I just want some kindness in the ground,” Dermot Weld said last night as he considered whether to let Forgotten Rules run in Thursday’s Gold Cup. No one would blame Weld for thinking better of it and his horse may be vulnerable in any case, tackling a Group One race for the first time on the fastest ground he has ever encountered.
Mizzou (4.20) is also stepping up in class but won what looks the most significant trial for this race, the Sagaro Stakes here in April, which was also run on fast ground. The four-year-old showed formidable strength from the turn for home on that occasion to power past Forever Now.
It seemed a truly run contest and, on the strength of it, Mizzou seems unlikely to have any problems with the extra half-mile he tackles this time.
His trainer, Luca Cumani, has masses of experience with quality stayers and felt he had a Gold Cup horse in his yard when Mizzou was progressing through handicaps. This is where we find out but odds of 11-2 are twice what you can get about Forgotten Rules.
The French raider Bathyrhon is in a similar boat to the favourite, inasmuch as we don’t yet know whether he can cope with a fast surface, but his credentials are excellent in other respects. He looks a bit over-priced at 11-1.
2.30 Trainer Richard Hannon, who won this last year in his first season with a licence, has a couple of highly talented juveniles in King Of Rooks and Log Out Island. Given that most horses from the yard, including King Of Rooks, have needed their first runs, it is greatly to the credit of Log Out Island that he was able to win a strong race here on his debut last month. But preference, even at shorter odds, is for the more experienced King Of Rooks, whose latest success at Sandown was by five lengths over Buratino, this week’s Coventry winner.
3.05 Time Test’s victory in the London Gold Cup looks a strong piece of form and he is expected to do better for that reappearance outing. The only horse to beat him in his last three starts was Latharnach, runner-up in a Group One this week. Time Test seems to be heading towards races of that class too.
3.40 Pleascach is a worthy favourite on the strength of her Irish 1,000 Guineas win, when she had the subsequent Oaks winner, Qualify, behind her. The main concern is that that strongly run 18-horse Classic must have taken something out of her and this is asking quite a bit, less than four weeks later, which is not accounted for her in her odds. Curvy appeals at 8-1, having turned over a Derby candidate on The Curragh last month, her third win this year. She is a half-sister to a previous winner of this race, as well as to an Irish 2,000 Guineas winner, so it can hardly be a surprise if she has the necessary quality, and there is every chance that this extra quarter-mile will suit.
5.00 Here is a big chance for Barry Hills to get a Royal Ascot winner in his last year as a trainer, as Sahaafy finished strongly in a handicap on Newmarket’s straight mile last month and should have more to offer, despite an 11lb rise.
5.35 Beaten only by Time Test at Newbury last time, Dissolution should appreciate this step up in trip and can return to winning ways with Ryan Moore back in the saddle.
