Star performance last week came from Derby flop Delacroix with a remarkable effort in a messy edition of the Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park on Saturday [July 5].
Run for the first time as a £1m contest, the historic mile-and-a-quarter clash of the generations attracted a six-runner field featuring five previous G1 winners.
The exception was Delacroix, who failed to produce any sort of challenge at Epsom when sent off favourite for last month’s Betfred Derby, where he was a dismal ninth behind Aidan O’Brien-trained stablemate Lambourn.
Things didn’t look too bright at Sandown, either, for the son of Dubawi as he was short of room more than once in the straight, anchored at the rear before producing a powerful turn of foot to run down market leader Ombudsman by a neck, with 2,000 Guineas winner Ruling Court claiming third place.
Delacroix (#25 from #73, +168pt) duly makes a sizeable jump on Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s Global Rankings, where Ombudsman (#39 from #52, +39pt) also receives a boost.
World #1 jockey Ryan Moore said the race had been “far from simple”, adding: “I wanted to go forward but got caught in a pocket and was a long way back so I had to wait and go around them. “He showed a very good turn of foot and got up to beat a very good horse,” he went on. “He is a Dubawi. He didn’t like Epsom but is out of a great racemare [Tepin] and had a superior turn of foot today.”
Moore and O’Brien were completing a hat-trick in the Eclipse after Paddington (2023) and City Of Troy (2024); the trainer now has a record nine wins in the race.
“He [Moore] said he changed his plans four times!” marvelled O’Brien. “Going out, he said he was happy to make the running and he wasn’t the only one who had that on his mind. It just kept changing.
“But Ryan did say to me that Delacroix is a very fast horse and he wouldn’t be surprised if he is a miler. So I knew what was inside Ryan’s head and I had a fair idea what he was thinking but he did say that four times he changed his plans.
“They went, then they steadied and then they went again. It was very difficult for Ryan but it was a masterful ride.”
Delacroix may now line up for what could be a mouthwatering clash with star miler Field Of Gold in the Juddmonte International on August 20 at York. Ombudsman is also possible.
There was little movement last week in the upper echelons of the standings, although French-based Francis Graffard (#9 from #10, +35pt) continued his ascent up the trainers’ list with another G1 success courtesy of Woodshauna (#89 from #309, +205pt), who came out on top in a tight finish to the Prix Jean Prat for three-year-olds over seven furlongs at Deauville.
The 12-1 shot, who went from last-to-first to lead narrowly in the last 50 yards, was sold to John Stewart’s Resolute Racing team for £625,000 at the Goffs London Sale last month on the eve of Royal Ascot.
“He has a lot of speed and seven furlongs is the maximum,” said Graffard. The G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest over 6½ furlongs is next on the agenda.
• View the latest TRC Global Rankings for horses / jockeys / trainers / sires
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• Unlike traditional methods of racehorse rankings, TRC Global Rankings are a measure of an individual’s level of achievement over a rolling three-year period, providing a principled hierarchy of the leading horses, jockeys, trainers, owners and sires using statistical learning techniques. Racehorse rankings can be compared to similar exercises in other sports, like the golf’s world rankings or the ATP rankings in tennis.
They are formulated from the last three years of races we consider Group or Graded class all over the world and update automatically each week according to the quality of a horse’s performances and their recency, taking into account how races work out.