MAKING EXCUSES for beaten horses is an expensive pastime but it looks significant that Born To Sea is getting another chance to live up to his breeding in Group One company on the first day of Royal Ascot 2012.
The presence of Frankel, the world’s highest-rated racehorse, in the opening Queen Anne Stakes is a reminder that excuses are rarely necessary for the very best.
Unbeaten in 10 starts, and long odd-on to make it 11, Frankel’s opening-day race, and the appearance of the Australian superstar Black Caviar on Saturday, provide bookends of quality appropriate for the most concentrated week of excellence in the racing year.
Aidan O’Brien pitches Excelebration into a fifth career clash with Frankel but the five lengths he was behind the headline act in the Lockinge last month was the widest margin yet between the pair so the likelihood of a reverse is reflected in the bookmaker odds.
Ireland’s champion trainer will fancy his chances much more in the St James’s Palace Stakes where O’Brien seeks a record seventh win in the Group One mile event. Four of the six previous Ballydoyle winners had won the Irish Guineas on their previous start so Power brings a perfect profile to the prestigious mile contest.
However a 16-strong line-up, and the willingness of several who finished behind him at the Curragh to tackle Power again, indicates this is a pretty open heat.
John Oxx brought Azamour to win here eight years ago after defeats in the English and Irish Guineas, but they were much better efforts than Born To Sea managed in the same races.
The half-brother to Sea The Stars ruined his chance by pulling too hard at Newmarket and the effort of getting him to settle at the Curragh compromised his winning chance.
However jockey Johnny Murtagh, on a roll after Sunday’s French Oaks success, is hopeful of much better now.
“He settled better the last day and I think he can step up again. He’s a horse I’ve always liked. We view him as a Group One horse and I think Ascot could be the ideal track for him,” he said.
Murtagh is on Sole Power in the Kings Stand Stakes but the sprinter has ground to make up on the Australian Ortensia on Dubai form and is unlikely to be suited by a slight dig in the going.
Cristoforo Colombo is Aidan O’Brien’s hope of a seventh Coventry Stakes but Jim Bolger’s Dawn Approach has impressed in three starts to date and that extra experience could be crucial.
Parliament Square represents Ballydoyle in the Windsor Castle but Mick Channon’s juvenile team looks strong this season and Pay Freeze holds some appeal while a strong-Irish team in the 2½ mile Ascot Stakes may struggle to cope with Monterey.
