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Just a great race to watch. We can analyse it to death but was a cracking race. I’m sure it will be dissected to death with race stats but let’s just a enjoy a great racing spectacle.
Delacroix was very good yesterday but Field Of Gold beats him comfortably over a mile imo.
The sharp 1m2f of the Juddmonte could suit both if they turn up.
The Juddmonte is actually 10½F but yes it would be a track that potentially would suit both horse’s style of racing……a long straight that you could get Delacroix rolling from further out on and one that Ombudsman could sit and wait until striking inside the final 2F.
Strangely of the two I could see Ombudsman being equally as effective over a mile as the stride or two quicker pace they most likely would go (assuming it wasn’t a slow tactically run race) would potentially help him to settle better in the early stages.
Still think they should have a pacemaker on hand (to cover all bases) in his future races to save them being held hostage to fortune like they clearly were yesterday when they went no gallop.
Over the 10.5f of the juddmonte camille will come into calculations. Stayed the trip well in the French Derby and yesterday he lost a shoe which didn’t help and he became unbalanced. With the flat straight at York will come with one steady run. All depends on how tliw comes out of the jean prat today as he may go moulin leaving delacroix to go Sussex and camille juddmonte. The lads love the Irish champion so I can see at least two going to that. Whirl of course could enter calculations for a few races.
O’Brien said of Delacroix on Sunday: “He has the choice of the Juddmonte or the Irish Champion Stakes next, or maybe even both. Those are the two races we have in mind for him now. He seems fine this morning and appears to have come out of it well, although he obviously hasn’t done anything yet.
“He has a proper turn of foot. We knew he got a mile well last year, but the two times he ran at Leopardstown this year before the Derby were slowly run races, and he didn’t half quicken. Somewhere like York would be made for him, and Leopardstown would be lovely, too. We have two nice options for him.”
It was put to O’Brien that he did not really know where he stood with Delacroix after the Derby, in which he finished a disappointing ninth, and he replied: “No, we did. We had a fair idea he was a mile-and-a-quarter horse.
“Ryan [Moore] always said he had a lot of pace and he would be happy to go back to a mile with him, but we knew what happened in the Derby could happen. There’s only one Derby so we had a go.”
Well that seems pretty cut and dry on where they are planning on going with him – still don’t see the mile thing or the better turn of foot personally as it looked like it was actually his ability in slowing down the slowest (better stamina than outright speed) that won him the race, as both Camille and Ombudsman both recorded faster single sectional furlongs (8F) than him according to the data.
https://www.racingtv.com/results/2025-07-05/sandown-park/1535
Gosden did say his horse was outstayed. If that was the case that would make delacroix very hard to beat next time. He has a turn of foot allied to the stamina makes him tough to beat over 10f.
Don’t usually find Julian Muscat’s columns particularly gripping but his column today on the Eclipse is excellent. If that was Hoiles that did the ITV commentary Mark Johnson won the Eclipse by a distance. Something Graham Goodesque about his style.
Graham Goode was terrible. His pre-planned puns were painful.
Hoiles is the same on that score.
If he was “terrible” Channel 4 Racing would not have been the wonderful shop window for Horse-racing it was.
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