As exciting as the action will be, featuring such bonafide European stars as Economics and Charyn, QIPCO British Champions day at Ascot Oct. 19 should be viewed from these horses more realistically as the anti-Breeders' Cup. This is especially true when Champions sits just two weeks prior to the North American showcase, as it does this year. Only the most daring or desperate run their top horses back so quickly any longer.
Except for Aidan O'Brien. Chances are the Irish trainer will bring a couple of runners straight from deep and damp Ascot this weekend to firm and dry Del Mar, keeping with a recent practice that has meant for little success, but great sportsmanship.
In recent years, such O'Brien runners as Broome, Cliffs of Moher, Seventh Heaven, and Pretty Perfect have come out of Champions races and failed to win any of the three major Breeders' Cup events on grass, although Stone Age and Magical (twice) did run bang-ups seconds, and Highland Reel a close third.
Still, there has been a sprinkling of success for a Champions-Breeders' Cup turnaround. Found finished second in the 2015 Champion Stakes (G1) and two weeks later won the Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T) at Keeneland. Modern Games finished second in the 2022 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (G1) on the Champions card, then three weeks later won the Breeders' Cup Mile (G1T).
"Champions doesn't really fit with the Breeders' Cup," said John Gosden, who has done well at both. "It's really one or the other. If you've got the right kind of horse you can do it, but it's really the Arc weekend that fits very nicely with the Breeders' Cup."
The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (G1) and its supporting features usually take place on a weekend four weeks before any Breeders' Cup, including this year's celebration at Longchamp Oct. 5-6. And as much as the Champions day timing works against top Europeans, the ground does not help much, either. More often than not, Ascot this time of year can be an exhausting slog, leaving runners with their tongues hanging. Gosden predicted it would be no different this time around.
"It will be soft, dead, sticky old ground," Gosden said Friday evening, on his way to a London shindig presented by the sponsors of the day.
Still, the money is very good: $1.32 million to the winner of the Champion Stakes, $1.17 million for taking the Queen Elizabeth II, and about half a million to the winners of the British Champions Long Distance Cup (G2), the British Champions Sprint Stakes (G1), and the British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes (G1). The first of the features starts at 8:20 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time.
This time last year, the training team of John and son Thady Gosden were sailing along comfortably in front of O'Brien in the race for the British title. In 2024, however, O'Brien's raids from Ireland have reaped a bounty of prizes, putting him far ahead of second-place Andrew Balding. The Gosdens are in a cluster of stables fighting for the bronze medal.
"It's been a solid season," Gosden said. "Not exciting, but solid. You need the grade 1 horses for the big money races, and we've been a little light there."
The Gosdens will try to end the British season with a bang Saturday with five runners in four of the Ascot features. Queen of The Pride is a longshot in the Fillies & Mares, but they have a chance in a wide-open Sprint with the gelding Audience, winner of the Lockinge Stakes (G1) earlier this year. And Nashwa, their 2022 winner of the Prix de Diane (G1), has had a rough road since and will be up against it in the Champion Stakes facing the 3-year-old monsters Calandagan, Los Angeles, and Economics.
But first comes the Long Distance Cup, an eternal journey of 1 15/16 miles over Ascot hill and dale in which the stable will be represented by longshot Sweet William and defending champ Trawlerman.
The 2023 Cup provided an unforgettable duel between Trawlerman and the O'Brien-trained Kyprios, who seized the lead late in the race from the Gosden horse but then was run down in the final yards. Since then, Kyprios has been on dizzying streak of six straight victories, among them an exciting rematch against Trawlerman in the Gold Cup (G1) at Ascot June 20. This will be Trawlerman's first race since that day.
"He was pretty shook up after that and got a little bit sick, so he needed a holiday," Gosden said. "We'll certainly need a plot to handle Kyprios, but I don't know quite what we'll do. Sometimes our guy doesn't put his best foot forward, so we'll try and encourage him not to do that."
The Gosdens took the Breeders' Cup by storm last year at Santa Anita Park, winning the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1T) with European champion older mare Inspiral that led to an Eclipse Award for the division. This year, it will be fillies again on the Breeders' Cup attack, but not with the best of the barn. That would be Friendly Soul, a daughter of Kingman who capped a three-race win streak with a victory on Arc weekend in the Prix de l'Opera (G1). Gosden, a diehard opera buff, saw the mild irony.
"That was a funny point, especially since we'd been second in the race six times," Gosden said. "I did tease Thady a bit that it took so long."
While the timing is right, Friendly Soul's owner, George Strawbridge, must wait until next year to enjoy Friendly Soul in a Breeders' Cup race.
"She's s 3-year-old and has done a fair bit of racing this year," Gosden said. "So she'll just freshen up for next year. We thought about the Filly & Mare Turf, but she's not a big, robust filly, and you know what happens if you draw wide on the grass at Del Mar."
Usually, nothing good, although the Gosdens will be entering a pair of fillies come Breeders' Cup pre-entries Oct. 23. One of them will be the towering Emily Upjohn, who was not embarrassed by Arc winner Bluestocking in their September encounter in the Prix Vermeille (G1) at Longchamp nor when second to her in the Pretty Polly Stakes (G1) at the Curragh. The other is Running Lion, second to Friendly Soul last out.
As one of only two European trainers to have won the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), accomplished in 2008 on Santa Anita's synthetic surface with Queen Elizabeth II winner Raven's Pass—Gosden will be among the many watching this year's version with special interest, as O'Brien tries for the prize with Epsom Derby (G1) hero City of Troy.
Gosden knows American dirt surfaces well, from a decade of training in North America. He last tried the Classic in 2018 with Roaring Lion, the sire of Running Lion and a Cartier Horse of the Year. The colt refused to deal with the Churchill Downs dirt that day and was brought home last of 14.
City of Troy is a different sort of animal, though. Arriving at the Champions party, Gosden provided a word of caution for skeptics.
"He's a horse that can maintain a very high cruising speed," the trainer said. "If he gets a draw that helps him to avoid kickback going into the first turn, he will be very dangerous."
