British Champions Day 2016 tips: Almanzor will not be found wanting in champions field at Ascot

Class act: Almanzor
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Andy Stephens14 October 2016

Many of the best horses trained in Britain and Ireland will rub shoulders on a glittering Qipco British Champions Day card at Ascot tomorrow but it is a colt trained in France who is fancied to take top billing.

No fewer than 23 Group One winners will be in action on the card, each chasing a slice of the £4.26million prize money on offer, but it is Almanzor, officially the highest-rated horse in Europe, who is star of the show.

The French Derby winner took his form to another level at Leopardstown last month when swooping from off the pace to land one of the best Irish Champion Stakes ever run.

His stunning acceleration swept him past seven other winners at the highest level, including Found, who has since won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in great style.

The rematch between the pair promises to be the highlight of a dazzling day and it is not difficult to envisage them dominating again.

Four Classic winners will go to post in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes but Ribchester is fancied to prove too strong for all of them.

The Richard Fahey-trained colt is thriving in his racing and, having finished an unlucky third in the Sussex Stakes, was a deserved winner of the Group One Jacques le Marois at Deauville last time. He had Galileo Gold, Lighting Spear and Stormy Antarctic behind on that occasion and can confirm his superiority.

Ribchester has been on the go for six months and normally his schedule would be a concern but I saw him at Malton last week and he was full of beans. Minding, winner of the 1,000 Guineas and Oaks, rates as the principal threat.

Best bet of the day, at around 7-1 could be Mecca’s Angel, who will be having the final run of her career before being retired to stud, in the six-furlong Qipco British Champions Sprint Stakes.

The five-year-old mare is a rarity — a back-to-back winner of the Nunthorpe Stakes — and many will dismiss her as a five-furlong specialist.

However, she was extremely strong at the finish in each of her Nunthorpe triumphs and in the latest was much too quick for Limato, the brilliant July Cup winner.

Standard Sport's tips

1.25    Order Of St George

2.00    Mecca’s Angel (nap)

2.35    Seventh Heaven (nb)

3.10    Ribchester

3.45    Almanzor

4.25    Sea Wolf

You can make excuses for her latest narrow defeat in the Prix de l’Abbaye and, provided that race has not left a mark, she could bow out in style.

Aidan O’Brien has dominated the season and fields a strong team, with Order Of St George (Qipco British Champions Long Distance Cup) and Seventh Heaven (Qipco British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes) holding outstanding claims.

Order Of St George was a commanding winner of the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot in June and proved he was not just a slugger when third behind stablemates Found and Highland Reel in the Arc.

The fear for those considering backing him at around Evens is that this will race may come a bit quick, but he did not have the hardest time at Chantilly and, in any case, can afford to run below his best and still prevail. Simple Verse is the main threat.

Seventh Heaven has won the Irish Oaks and Yorkshire Oaks with great authority on her past two starts and it is going to take a very good one to stop her.

She beat Found at York last time and, while the runner-up was thought to need the run that day, she had another smart filly, Queen’s Trust, well adrift in third.

The final race on the card, the Balmoral Handicap, which is Europe’s richest mile handicap, can also go to Ireland via Sea Wolf, winner of the Irish Cambridgeshire on his latest start.

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