The spectators were glancing nervously at a darkening sky as they started to leave the track here on Friday, but they were still no closer to knowing whether Cracksman, last year’s Champion Stakes winner, will line up for the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes on Saturday afternoon after several thunderstorms passed nearby while leaving Ascot itself largely untouched.
There were several points during the afternoon when a downpour seemed inevitable, not least as Clon Coulis was led back to unsaddle after winning the Valient Stakes, the card’s feature race at 3.35, with thunder and lightning in the middle distance. A heavy shower shortly before the last race will have done little to affect the official going, which left Cracksman’s connections and supporters hoping for much more significant rainfall overnight.
It is Ascot’s National Hunt circuit, unused since late March, which best tells the story of this exceptionally dry summer. Parched and wizened like the rest of the Ascot infield, it offers a sharp contrast with the green ribbon of Ascot’s Flat track, where even daily watering has only managed to maintain the going at good-to-firm.
“There’s a weather warning for thunderstorms in the area now,” Chris Stickels, the clerk of the course, said on Friday afternoon. “That’s from 2pm until 2am, and on the radar it looks as though there are some storms coming across the Channel from northern France.
“But that’s the nature of thunderstorms, they’re hit and miss. We’re putting on all the water we need to, to keep it safe and with a good covering of grass to hold the moisture in there. We had 5mm of rain last Friday but apart from that we had 1.6mm at the beginning of June and that’s it. We have records going back to 1992 and we’ve seen nothing like this in that time.”
Cracksman has three Group One wins on his record including an emphatic win on rain-softened ground in last season’s Champion Stakes. The ground was quick when he was beaten at odds-on in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Ascot last month, however, and neither John Gosden, his trainer, nor his owner Anthony Oppenheimer are inclined to run him on fast ground again ahead of his main target for the season, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris in October.
If Cracksman misses Saturday’s race, Poet’s Word, who beat him in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, will vie for favouritism with Crystal Ocean, a stable companion at Sir Michael Stoute’s yard in Newmarket, who was also a winner at the Royal meeting in the Hardwicke Stakes.
Significant overnight rain at Ascot will also prompt speculation about the possible draw advantage for Saturday’s big betting race, the International Handicap over the straight seven furlongs. Flaming Spear, who was first home on the far side when fifth in the Royal Hunt Cup last month, is currently the narrow ante-post favourite to give owner Tony Bloom another big handicap win following victories in last year’s Cesarewitch and the Northumberland Plate at Newcastle last month.
Uttoxeter 1.40 Kiruna Peak 2.10 Mountain Rock 2.45 Premier King 3.20 Calarules 3.55 Notnow Seamus 4.30 King’s Reste 5.05 Full Bore
Ascot 1.50 Ceratonia 2.25 Crantock Bay 3.00 Speedo Boy 3.35 Beshaayir (nap) 4.10 Atty Persse 4.45 Venturous (nb) 5.15 Procedure
Thirsk 2.00 Dream Of Honour 2.35 Ascended 3.10 Bee Machine 3.45 Prince Elzaam 4.20 Iron Sky 4.55 Broken Wings 5.25 Semana Santa
Newmarket 5.35 Margie’s Choice 6.10 Lolita Pulido 6.40 Delft Dancer 7.10 Balgair 7.40 Fairlight 8.10 Sleeping Lion 8.40 Starboy
Chepstow 5.50 Junoesque 6.20 Thriving 6.50 Poyle Charlotte 7.20 Glamorous Dream 7.50 Broadhaven Honey 8.20 Timoshenko 8.55 Innoko
York 6.00 Data Protection 6.30 Pennsylvania Dutch 7.00 Persian Moon 7.30 Desert Diamond 8.00 Racemaker 8.30 Airglow
Tips by Greg Wood
