With the ground having gone soft they should just switch to the hurdle/chase course and get some slow old plodders out at Ascot.
A friend of mine is on the Johnston hotpot in the Norfolk but like the rest that have not encountered soft ground yet, anything could happen.
With the testing ground, does anyone want to give Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck another chance? No wins since Epsom 2019 and the principle form race for the Hardwicke seems to be the Coronation Cup, which provides three of today’s other runners. Is it really possible to suggest that the Coronation form was franked by Stradivarius in the Gold Cup? Elarqam is too expensive to follow these days but his Brigadier Gerard conqueror is now a Group 1 winner.
The Queen’s Vase could turn out to be a right slog in the ground so all that leaves is the one that I had picked out at the start of the week.
The Commonwealth Cup features a number of non-stayers from the Classics. I presume that Oisin was told to ride Millisle like a miler at HQ but she did not get home and George Baker’s French import Les Hogues finished second last; but both will definitely go in the ground. Mums Tipple was last in the 2000 Guineas, a race whose form has hardly been advertised this week and he has never encountered soft ground. I was at York when he bolted up in a valuable sales race and a repeat is hard to envisage. Of the four Ballydoyle contenders Lope Y Fernandez, third at The Curragh, is an interesting contender having won twice on easy going as a juvenile.
There will be plenty of takers for Roger Varian’s Pierre Lapin after the winners he has sent out in the last couple of days but his two race career is fast ground form although he does hold Shadn and Royal Commando on Mill Reef running. Golden Horde’s second in the Middle Park to Earthlight reads well (Lope Y Fernandez and Mums Tipple behind) but he also ventures onto soft ground for the first time. Royal Crusade will have no problem with the going but drops to six furlongs having only raced over seven. So that leads me to last year’s Queen Mary runner-up, beaten in a photo on easy ground over five, hoping to go one better for Wesley Ward this time over six: KIMARI. Come on Frankie!