Equinties - King Kyprios

Gm Equinauts

KYPRIOS was utterly brilliant Saturday, completely cementing his name in the Stayers Hall of Fame where he’ll stay forever (excuse the pun).

Let’s look back at both his and the other great performances from the weekend inc. our eye-catchers.

Let’s dive in.

HEADLINE ROUNDUP

GOOD OLD FAVOURITES

When you look at CHARYN and KYPRIOS in isolation, it’s crazy how good their seasons have been despite how different they are.

If you had been given 10 attempts at naming this season's top miler before the campaign started, no one bar Doctor Who or Marty McFly would have given you the correct answer.

CHARYN certainly wouldn’t have been the hot pick at the start of the season. Let’s not forget he was a horse beaten by ANGEL BLEU last year and was sent off 2/1, 9/4, and 4/1 in his first three starts of the campaign.

Its safe to say, he’s come out of absolutely no where!

Yet, after Champions Day, it’s clear who the best miler currently in training is, and it’s Roger Varian’s gallant grey.

He may not be done as well as he may contest the Mile Championship in Kyoto next month.

He’s been a great horse this year, but so has KYPRIOS.

Seven from seven. 4x Group 1s, 1x Group 2’s, 1x Group 3, and a Listed success.

That’s the stats for Aidan O’Brien’s star stayer, and to do all of that after his big setback last year is simply insane.

The manner of Saturday’s success perfectly epitomises KYPRIOS as a Group 1 stayer as well.

That’s because he did it the hard way from the front, yet he made the hard way look so easy, and that’s something Aidan O’Brien has noticed about all of his recent victories.

The best bit about Saturday is the fact he’s staying around next year despite his age of six!

Good on you Coolmore. Is he a greater stayer than YEATS? Arguably, he is, but if he does it again next year, there will be no doubt.

The NH breeders must already be licking their lips over the though of the big KYP covering theirs mares.

JUDDMONTE FILLIES

Could Juddmonte win next year’s Arc with a different four-year-old filly?

They won this year’s renewal with BLUESTOCKING, but after KALPANA won the Fillies and Mares Stakes on Saturday, Andrew Balding was left pondering over the long-term aim for his STUDY OF MAN three-year-old.

We’ll come back to this, but let’s focus on Saturday’s win.

Considering Balding and Juddmonte were thinking of selling her in February, she’s come a long way from her debut win in January and her Group 1 success not only gives STUDY OF MAN a first winner at this level, but it also further boosts the form of May’s Listed Pretty Polly Stakes at Newmarket.

FRIENDLY SOUL and KALPANA have both won Group 1s. What a piece of form!

She probably benefitted from sitting prominently, but she still had to come wide around the bend and show a good turn of foot to catch the long-time leader WINGSPAN who had set a fairly slow pace. To do what she did, the way she did it, was impressive, especially on the ground which William Buick said she handled without necessarily loving it.

That final line is a key point regarding a potential Arc attempt.

Last year was quick ground, but this year was slow, so if she is to be campaigned that way, that might just go against her in one of the most competitive Group 1s of the year.

Anyway, that’s just under a year away, let’s enjoy what she has done!

PACE PACE PACE

Before we go onto eye-catchers, it’s worth mentioning the Champion Stakes because, well, there was a 40/1 winner!

We won’t grumble about ANMAAT because he needed a career-best to win a race like that and that is exactly what he produced.

What we will comment on is this common opinion that CALANDAGAN was a seriously unlucky loser.

Did CALANDAGAN have a rough route through? Yes.

Could he have won with a clear path? Maybe but by changing his route, you change the make up of the whole race - so it’s a stupid question.

ANMAAT arguably had a roughest route through of anything… and CALANDAGAN had first run on ANMAAT!

ANMAAT trounced every single one of them fair and square.

Jim Crowley was swinging behind runners for a long time, and when the gap opened, he went through like a very good horse.

Both horses benefitted from a very strong early pace, as shown by the fact that CONTINUOUS, LOS ANGELES, and KING’S GAMBIT (the pace-setters) finished out the bag of the TV, but ANMAAT was certainly a deserved winner based on the conditions.

EYE-CATCHERS

STRONG RUN - FRIDAY 17.40 UTTOXETER

Did brilliantly well to come second when she wasn’t allowed to win. A result completely fixed, she was by far the best horse in the race and will be a big big winner for us soon.

SWEET WILLIAM – SATURDAY 13.20 ASCOT

Without realising it until this weekend, SWEET WILLIAM has progressed into quite the stayer for John & Thady Gosden.

To think he was running off 88 in a handicap 15 months ago, he is now rated 115 (and will probably go up a few pounds for Saturday) and has just had the misfortune of bumping into KYPRIOS too many times.

His attitude is very commendable. He was gutsy to win the Doncaster Cup and he showed a similar performance in the Long Distance Cup.

If he runs in races away from KYPRIOS next year, he’ll be tough to beat.

BEAU BALKO – SUNDAY 15.25 KEMPTON

If you buy into the theory that Paul Nicholls’ horses need their first runs, then there were plenty of positives to take from BEAU BALKO’s run at Kempton yesterday.

He was neat at a few of his fences and he’s still only six, so he is still improving in the chasing game.

While BOURBALI and FRERE D’ARMES were the main two attractions at the finish, BEAU BALKO stayed on through the line to finish third.

He’ll need that run and a mark of 127 is still eye-catching.

RISK ON

We like a few fave’s today so we’ll put them in a lotto acca with single plays on the stronger ones:

FAVES DAY

14.15 LOVING APPRENTICE, 15.15 CALLA LAGOON, 16.15 OXFORD COMMA, 17.15 PLATINUM PRINCE & 18.30 SECOND NAME - 42/1 a small win acca.

We will tweet the strongest singles and there is plot job today which we haven't taken any action on yet, we will wait and tweet that later this afternoon.

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