Marmalade looks sweet for O'Brien

Date with destiny: Duke Of Marmalade (left) loses out to Excellent Art at Royal Ascot last year but can make amends tomorrow
John O'Hara13 April 2012

Aidan O'Brien has never trained the winner of the Prince Of Wales's Stakes but tomorrow Duke Of Marmalade can fill in that vacant space on his curriculum vitae.

The notable absentee in his resume hasn't been for the lack of effort as the Tipperary handler has had runners in six of the last seven renewals of the valuable Group 1 event.

Twelve months ago his subsequent King George and Arc winner Dylan Thomas was runner-up to Manduro which was not only the highlight of Royal Ascot, but one of the best races any where all year.

The good news for the O'Brien team is that there is no Manduro lurking in tomorrow's field and it is Duke Of Marmalade who is set to be the show stopper in the £375,000 mile-and-a-quarter contest at 3.45.

The four-year-old kicked off 2008 with victory over Saddex in the Prix Ganay at Longchamp and followed up with a more impressive performance when dismissing former dual Guineas heroine Finsceal Beo in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh, both Group 1 affairs.

An unsettled weather forecast for Ascot is a concern for trainers of some of the runners, but O'Brien won't be too bothered as his smart colt has won on both soft and fast ground this season.

Pressing ran in this corresponding event 12 months ago and was comprehensively beaten, but at the time he had only been with his trainer Michael Jarvis a fortnight.

The Newmarket handler believes he is now a 14lb better horse than last year and he is another who won't mind what the ground is, although his recent Group 1 victory in Italy was on soft going.

If there are any chinks in the favourite's armour this could be the horse to exploit them.

He was narrowly beaten by Italian star Saddex last time, a horse Duke Of Marmalade saw off by half a length in the Ganay, suggesting that although O'Brien's colt has the edge he needs to be on top of his game to win this prestigious race.

Phoenix Tower bids to give the leading Royal Ascot trainer Henry Cecil an incredible sixth win in the race, but has never having run over this distance before and that is an obvious concern.

Saeed bin Suroor has won four of the last ten renewals and if his Literato can return to the form of last autumn he would have a major say, but in his two runs this term he hasn't looked the same horse.

It is fitting that at this most regal of occasions the big race should be won by racing royalty and surely there is no better qualified candidate than 'The Duke'.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in