The field for the Group One Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown on Saturday reduced from 30 possible runners to five on Monday when New Bay, the French Derby winner, was among the horses ruled out at the five-day declaration stage. The Eclipse will still fulfil its traditional role as a first point of contact between the generations, however, as Golden Horn, the Derby winner at Epsom, remains on course to face four opponents including The Grey Gatsby, last year’s French Derby winner.
Golden Horn is the only three-year-old still engaged in the Eclipse and is top-priced at 2-5 to extend his unbeaten record to five starts following the news that André Fabre’s New Bay, a 4-1 chance on Monday morning, will not make the trip from Chantilly.
“André Fabre has reported that New Bay did not work well enough this morning to justify going to Sandown for the Eclipse Stakes,” Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager to the colt’s owner, Prince Khalid Abdullah, said. “He will now wait and look at the various other options.”
A head-to-head between the English and French Derby winners would have been a coup for Sandown but Andrew Cooper, the track’s director of racing, still expects Golden Horn to draw a big crowd to the track on Saturday.
“Hearing about New Bay was disappointing. It would have been really exciting to have him come over but it wasn’t to be,” Cooper said on Monday.
“The number confirming today came as no real surprise, once you started looking at the 30 horses left in it was possible to put a line through quite a significant number. I was fully expecting a single-figure confirmation but hoping that New Bay would be amongst them to give the race a different complexion.
“But the field includes the Investec Derby winner and also The Grey Gatsby, an older horse and a proven horse at Group One level, which is fundamentally one of the things that the Coral-Eclipse is about and always has been.
“He gives a very true line to the older horses and Cougar Mountain [who finished third behind Solow in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot] is very interesting too, and Western Hymn [third home in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot] has an excellent record at Sandown.”
The Grey Gatsby was the first Classic winner of Kevin Ryan’s training career when he took the 2014 Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) at Chantilly. He also looked unlucky to finish only second behind Free Eagle in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot earlier this month, and though he is a 7-2 chance for Saturday’s race, his supporters will take heart from the fact that he has often defied market expectations. The Grey Gatsby has started as favourite for four of his 14 career starts but has been beaten every time, while his four victories, including two at Group One level, have been recorded at 19-1, 9-1, 7-1 and 11-4.
He is also at his best on a sound surface, and Cooper expects the ground to be on the fast side of good on Saturday.
“It’s pretty much good ground at the moment,” he said. “We completed a watering cycle today which will have it at or near good ground and just on the faster side in places. The first half of the week looks like being one of rapidly increasing temperatures, with Tuesday about 28 or 29 degrees and Wednesday flagged up as the hottest day of the week at 32 or 33, something like that. Equally, once we get to Wednesday there is a suggestion of thunderstorms being possible through the latter part of the week, but quite scattered and isolated.
“We’ll take a view on Wednesday once the forecast is a little clearer. If it’s a dry, hot week we will no doubt be on good, fast ground at the weekend, which is fine but we’ve got a bit of moisture in now and I’m pleased it’s not rattling fast already.”
John Gosden, the trainer of Golden Horn, said on Monday that his colt remains in excellent form at home before his first meeting with older horses.
“Frankie [Dettori] was thrilled with his work on Saturday morning,” Gosden said. “He did a lovely seven furlongs on the watered gallop with a good older horse rated 118 and he skipped clear of him. He’s in good order and at the moment, touch wood, he’s going the right way.”
Side Glance, the winner of more than £1.7m during a wide-ranging international career for Andrew Balding, has been retired after failing to recover from a leg injury. His most significant success came in the Group One Mackinnon Stakes at Flemington Park in Australia in November 2013.
“Winning the Mackinnon Stakes must rank as the highlight,” Balding said on his website on Monday, “but his fourth place in last year’s Cox Plate, when he was beaten just half a length, was a brilliant effort.
“He was so courageous, durable and versatile. He was third to Frankel over a mile in one of the strongest Queen Anne Stakes there has ever been, and went on to be top-class over 10 furlongs.
“Horses like him, that can take you to the big occasion, are always nice to have. He has run in Hong Kong, Singapore, America, Canada, Australia, Dubai, and always went with a chance of winning.”
The Package, the winner of the Kim Muir Fulke Walwyn Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March, has been retired.
“Following his run at Uttoxeter on Sunday in the John Smith’s Summer Cup, I can confirm that our 12-year-old Cheltenham Festival winner has run his last race and been retired,” David Pipe, The Package’s trainer, said.
“I have had him in the yard ever since I took out my licence and what an incredible servant he has been, winning five times including that incredible success in this year’s Kim Muir under leading amateur Jamie Codd.
“He also won a Listed event at Cheltenham, a Badger Ales Trophy at Wincanton and was placed in the three-mile handicap chase at the Cheltenham Festival on three separate occasions, as well as finishing in the frame in the Hennessy Gold Cup behind subsequent Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Bobs Worth.”
