Delacroix ready for round three with Ombudsman

Aidan O’Brien is relishing the prospect of seeing Delacroix take on Ombudsman for the third time this season on what will be his final racecourse appearance in Saturday’s Qipco Champion Stakes.

It was Delacroix who came out on top when the pair first met in an epic Coral-Eclipse at Sandown in late July, with the son of Dubawi coming from a seemingly impossible position to nab John and Thady Gosden’s brilliant Prince of Wales’s Stakes scorer in the dying strides.

Ombudsman exacted his revenge in a Juddmonte International at York that will remembered for his pacemaker Birr Castle slipping the field and briefly threatening to cause a huge upset, since when Delacroix has got back on the winning trail in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.

Further spice is added to the trilogy of their rivalry by the fact Ombudsman sidestepped the latter event, with O’Brien mischievously taunting his rival at the time when saying: “Come to Leopardstown and hopefully we’ll see. We really want him to come.

“John is a great trainer, he whinges a little bit, but he’s a great trainer. Sometimes when John gets beat he doesn’t always take it very well, even when he wins!”

Round three will belatedly take place on Qipco Champions Day, however, and in a media call hosted by Ascot on Thursday the Ballydoyle handler said of his previous comments: “I was only saying that light-heartedly and as you know John does whinge a little bit after races, whether he wins or he loses, but it’s always good sport.

“Hopefully it’ll be an evenly run, fair race for everybody and then we’ll try and get it on and enjoy it and see what’s going to happen.

“We always go to win and that will never change. It’s a very good, very competitive race and as we always do we treat every horse with the utmost respect.”

For a while it looked like Delacroix and Ombudsman would not meet again, with O’Brien suggesting in the aftermath of his Irish Champion Stakes triumph that an early retirement was not out of the question for a horse who is expected to be a huge addition to the Coolmore stallion roster next year.

But with the ground at Ascot unseasonably quick, owners John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith have decided to roll the dice once more, much to O’Brien’s delight.

“We were delighted with him in Leopardstown, we went gently from there and had our eye on this race and it was just whether the lads were going to decide to go or not really,” he continued.

“I’d say if the ground was very soft it might have changed their thinking, but it looks like we’re going to get good ground at this meeting for the first time in a long time.

“Ascot was never going to be sure because the ground can go completely and I don’t think the lads were ever going to subject him to that, but they made the decision late, which was the right thing, and the lads love racing and love those big days and love to have horses to run on them.

“I think they have to be applauded for that because it’s their love of racing that’s making them do it more than a business or commercial decision and we’re very grateful to them for that.”

Delacroix looked every inch a major Derby contender after winning Ireland’s two key trials in the spring, but he failed to fire in the premier Classic at Epsom and has since reverted to a mile and a quarter successfully.

He has three and a half lengths to make up on Ombudsman on their summer meeting on the Knavesmire, but O’Brien feels their respective abilities are better judged on their Sandown clash the previous month.

He said: “The Derby didn’t work out, so we shortened him back then for the Eclipse, which was a normal run race really, he just got into a few pockets and had a lot of things to overcome and he did.

“York was a bit of a farce really, you wouldn’t see those kind of races in small conditions races, let alone a big Group one. They kind of hacked around and sprinted down the straight for four furlongs, so it was an unusually run race for that level, but anything can happen in racing.”

The Gosden operation have again declared a pacemaker in Devil’s Advocate, who was added to the field on Monday, while similar comments apply to Delacroix’s stablemate Mount Kilimanjaro, who is also amongst the cast of 11.

There is proven quality right through the field, with Francis-Henri Graffard’s Calandagan returning to the scene of his King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes triumph and bidding to go one better than his second to Anmaat in this contest 12 months ago.

The French team will also be represented by Andre Fabre’s supplemented Prix Dollar scorer First Look.

Economics will make a belated first appearance since finishing sixth as a 2-1 shot for this race 12 months ago, while Ed Walker bypassed the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with his stable star Almaqam in favour of taking in this contest.

Andrew Balding will saddle both the improving Almeric, who is fresh from a stylish victory at Ayr, and Fox Legacy, who was equally impressive in a conditions event during the Qatar Goodwood Festival.

The line-up is completed by Dylan Cunha’s Prague, who tries 10 furlongs for the first time since the first two starts of his career.