RACING:EXCELEBRATION WILL join Frankel at Ascot for Saturday's "Champions Day" card but will be spared another clash with the superstar colt and is instead expected to start a warm favourite for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
Runner-up in the QEII last year when under the care of Marco Botti, Excelebration has spent much of his career chasing Frankel’s shadow, but has twice proved himself a Group One winner at a mile when steered away from the world’s top-rated racehorse.
The second of them came when Aidan O’Brien sent his star four-year-old to Deauville for the Prix Jacques Le Marois in August. And Excelebration will attempt a Group One hat-trick at the weekend. “Excelebration goes for the mile race and we’re happy with him,” said O’Brien yesterday, before outlining other possible Champions Day contenders that could swing the initiative in the British trainers championship back the Irishman’s way.
O’Brien trails his big rival John Gosden by almost €250,000 after collecting nearly £2.9 million in prize-money in Britain during a season in which he has collected four of the five classics.
“We’re looking at Was for the mile-and-a-half filly and mares race, Fame And Glory for the long distance race and possibly Declaration Of War in the Champion Stakes,” said O’Brien.
“Starspangledbanner is in the sprint, but I don’t know yet about him and there are a few other bits and pieces.”
Fame And Glory landed the Group Three two-mile event last year but has been largely disappointing this season, although O’Brien is hopeful a return to Ascot could work the oracle.
“Ascot is coming so we’ve explained to him he has to get his act together!” joked Ireland’s champion trainer.
Declaration Of War, a transfer to Ballydoyle from France last year, and winner of a Group Three at Dundalk last Friday night, may be the next O’Brien runner to try and relieve Frankel of his unbeaten record. Saturday’s Champion Stakes is widely expected to be Frankel’s final career start.
A possible Irish rival for Fame And Glory in the Long Distance Cup is his 2010 predecessor as Ascot Gold Cup victor, Rite Of Passage. Dermot Weld’s star has been off the track due to leg trouble for almost a year-and-a-half but Weld intends having him ready for a restart soon.
Dawn Approach is all but assured of the title of Europe’s champion two-year-old in 2012 after making it six from six in Saturday’s Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket.
The Godolphin-owned colt beat his stable companion Leitir Mor in decisive fashion to give Jim Bolger a remarkable fifth victory in Britain’s most prestigious juvenile race in the last seven years.
And there was even further good news for the Co Carlow-based trainer afterwards when Sheikh Mohammed confirmed Dawn Approach will be left with Bolger to prepare for next year’s Classics.
Dawn Approach was reported unscathed after his weekend excertions and Godolphin spokesman Simon Crisford said: “He’s fine. It was a fantastic day and a great performance. He couldn’t have done any more.”
Dawn Approach is favourite for the 2013 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket and is also prominent in ante-post lists for the Epsom Derby, a race Bolger also has a contender for in Trading Leather who landed a Group Three at Newmarket on Saturday.
