Baaeed | Horse Racing Free Tips

Look To The Stars on Champions Day

Just 11 years old in its reconstructed state, Ascot's QIPCO British Champions Day is not yet the supermassive black hole it longs to be, but its gravitational waves are enough to draw in a sufficient quantity of racing's brightest year upon year to justify its title. Saturday's binary stars are the turf overlord Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) and the miling dame Inspiral (GB) (Frankel {GB}), whose orbits have been steadily coming closer into view over the past weeks. In the case of the former, this final act of his stellar career in the feature contest serves as a benediction while the filly is here to serve notice of what is to follow in 2023.

Baaeed's work over the past 16 months has led him to this point of valediction and enhanced rank that only very few enjoy. That it comes a rounded 10 years after Frankel's parting moment lends it an even greater solemnity and few will accept anything other than a last stately flourish from Shadwell's prodigy. The product of four decades of nurture by the late Sheikh Hamdan's celebrated organisation beginning with that seminal acquisition of The Queen's Height Of Fashion (Fr), William Haggas's model pupil returns to Berkshire and the human hubbub that such a day generates armed with his usual supreme proficiency.

“Staying unbeaten is terribly important now that we are nearly there,” Haggas said. “Everything so far this year has gone exactly as we wanted it to go when we sat down in March to decide our programme. It's been half a miracle to get to this situation in the position we are in. It's up to him now.”

What Of Adayar?

There are a clutch of colts in opposition to Baaeed that have at times shown a sufficient level of dexterity in this type of company to command respect despite his overarching presence. After what Bay Bridge (GB) (New Bay {GB}) did at Sandown in the G3 Brigadier Gerard S. back in May, it is scarcely believable that he has dwindled to the role of bit-player here while even the likes of the big horse's stablemate My Prospero (Ire) (Iffraaj {GB}), who hinted at his latent ability in the summer, is generally disregarded as a genuine threat.

Despite the obvious merits of this select crew, most view the greatest stumbling block to the inevitable coming from Frankel's Adayar (Ire), a towering colossus last midsummer who was dragged into the mire in Paris and here during the autumn. Rebuilt and renewed during a painstaking spell spanning months at Moulton Paddocks, it seems strange to say that he represents a still-unknown quantity, but the fact is that nobody can confidently predict what his limitations are heading to this moment of truth.

“He's had harder home gallops than the race at Doncaster, so theoretically we are going into this weekend as our first start of the year against proper competition,” Charlie Appleby said of Adayar. “We have seen what Adayar can do and he looks in great shape. Last year, we ended up being in front in the Arc and missing his prep race probably told in the end and then he ran in this like a horse whose previous start had gotten to him slightly.”

“Going into it this year, it's a different ball game,” his notably bullish trainer added. “Can we beat Baaeed? We are going there a fresher horse this year in conditions that we are quite relaxed about. It's going to be a fantastic race and hopefully one that will go down in the history books as being one of the great races that we have seen over the past few years.”

Marking The Occasion

In the year of the loss of the UK's longstanding monarch, this renewal of the G1 Queen Elizabeth II S. almost demands something special to stamp it and Cheveley Park Stud's G1 Coronation S. and G1 Prix Jacques Le Marois heroine Inspiral is the most obvious fit. Bar her eclipse on sun-tightened ground in the G1 Falmouth S., the Gosdens' elite performer of 2022 has set the bar among her age group at this trip while all the time suggesting a deal more to come.

In each of the four occasions that Gosden Sr. has prevailed in this, it has been from left field. After upsetting Giant's Causeway and Henrythenavigator with Obervatory and Raven's Pass, respectively, he delivered Cheveley Park's nearly horse Persuasive (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}) to down Ribchester (Ire) before diverting Roaring Lion from middle-distances for his crowning moment. No such guile is needed when it comes to Inspiral, whose claims are as obvious as those of the stable's Palace Pier (GB) (Kingman {GB}) who was denied in the past two editions by the deep-ground specialist The Revenant (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) and by Baaeed.

“She's been a superstar this season,” commented Frankie Dettori, who after a mixed year will be hoping to compensate for Palace Pier's eclipse 12 months ago. “She's been doing very well at home since and everyone is pleased with how she's coming into the race. Apart from a blip on the July Course, she's been a model of consistency and will hopefully prove hard to beat.”

Let The Games Commence

Charlie Appleby has gone through 2022 with the kind of precision strikes that have become the norm at his Newmarket base in recent years and despite the no-show of his Frankel heavyweights Adayar and Hurricane Lane (Ire) and the demise of Coroebus (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) arrives at Champions Day still poised to win another trainers' championship. In the QEII, the hardy transatlantic entrepreneur Modern Games (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) represents key opposition to Inspiral, while the select crew also includes the defending G1 QIPCO British Champions Sprint S. titleholder and favourite Creative Force (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) and the prime G1 QIPCO British Champions Fillies & Mares S. contender Eternal Pearl (GB) (Frankel {GB}). His biggest “outsider” of the day is Naval Crown (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}), who returns to the scene of his course-and-distance personal best in the June 18 G1 Platinum Jubilee S., so it is safe to say he is here with a notable party.

“How do you split Creative Force and Naval Crown?,” Appleby asked. “One's been there and done it on the occasion on this ground and that may be Creative Force's edge. Eternal Pearl has been strengthening throughout the year and that's why we purposefully have not dipped our toe into group one company already. She goes into this with a lovely profile and we are quite relaxed ground-wise. Staying is her forte, and if it came up testing it would play to her strengths. Modern Games can do Champions Day and the Breeders' Cup–it has been done many times before. He had a nice break after the Sussex Stakes and found it all very easy in Canada, so it doesn't worry me at all.”

Up For Grabs

With the Champion and QEII featuring strong favourites promising great excitement but little return for the currently beleaguered pound in their pockets, value-hunters will be looking at the first three races on the card. In the last five editions, eight of the 25 group races have been won by horses with double-figure odds and so at a time of year when there is great change in external and internal factors there is all to play for. In the Sprint, which is particularly prone to upsets, Chasemore Farm's G2 Greenlands S. winner Brad The Brief (GB) (Dutch Art {GB}), Ballydoyle's G1 Prix Jean Prat and G1 Cheveley Park S. heroine Tenebrism (Caravaggio) and Susan Roy's G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest third Garrus (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}) all trade at inflated odds given their high level of form.

A True Test

The opening G2 QIPCO British Champions Long Distance Cup sees the treble-seeking Trueshan (Fr) (Planteur {Ire}) bid to put a rare defeat on his favoured easy surface in the Sept. 11 G2 Doncaster Cup behind him. Having looked so ill-at-ease behind Coltrane (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) there, the doubt is that he can deal with two unexposed 3-year-olds in Ballydoyle's Irish Cesarewitch winner Waterville (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) and KHK Racing's St Leger hero Eldar Eldarov (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}). The latter is adding an extra element as the first winner of the Doncaster Classic to come here, with trainer Roger Varian having meticulously weighed up the pros and cons of tackling this at such a fledgling stage of his career. “We think his best is still to come, hopefully on Saturday and beyond into next year,” he said of the colt, who looks to become the first of his age group to win this. “He shapes like he'll stay two miles and looks like he might be better over it.”

Return Journey

Six years ago, Frankie Dettori steered George Strawbridge's Journey (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) to Fillies & Mares glory as one of the seven Champions Day winners which make him the meeting's leading jockey since its inception, but he has deserted her full-sister Mimikyu (GB) in this year's renewal, with the lure of the long-absent 'TDN Rising Star' Emily Upjohn (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) too strong. That leaves Rab Havlin to seek a second career Group 1 in the space of just eight days, having deputised for the suspended Italian on Commissioning (GB) (Kingman {GB}) in the Fillies' Mile. Frankie's call is a brave one, with Mimikyu having beaten last year's winner Eshaada (GB) (Muhaarar {GB}) comprehensively in Doncaster's G2 Park Hill S. Sept. 8 and every bit of her profile suggests she is one of those autumn improvers in which Clarehaven specialises. Emily Upjohn was undone over this course and distance in the King George and will need to cut an entirely different figure on this attempted rival with the conservation of energy essential in the early downhill section.

“Emily has had a long lay-off since the King George, where she never really turned up, and her homework since has been very good,” Dettori said. “She's been working well at home with a hood on to help settle her and she'll have it on for Saturday. She was extremely keen in the King George, so hopefully this helps. Mimikyu is running well and improving a lot, but we've always thought Emily was our number one filly, so I've decided to stick with her. She definitely has the class.”

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This Side Up: Would this Really Be Such a Stupid Gamble?

“Now why did I do that?” For some of us, the more painful that question becomes, the easier the answer. It'll be right there in that empty bottle, greeting you on the table in the morning.

For those of you whose conduct has more complex influences, however, apparently there's a handy publication out there called The Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. And you thought horse pedigrees were a niche interest.

In a recent edition, researchers from the universities of East Finland and Liverpool crunched data from 15,000 Finnish men commencing national service. I hope we will be indulged for cutting to the chase, as they conveniently reduce all their analysis to a couple of sentences of conclusion.

“This paper,” they declare, “demonstrates that a person's IQ predicts his engagement with horse betting.”

Now you know where this is going, right? It's another example of wasting a lot of time and effort to demonstrate something we know to be quite obvious already.

But wait. “Our results show that IQ… is positively correlated with participation in and expenditure on horse betting.” In other the words, the smarter your Finn, the more likely he is to bet the ponies. The puzzles of horse racing, the researchers suggest, will appeal most to a sophisticated, inquiring mind.

Just think of all those generations of stern parents who have sat down errant sons (the survey did not include females) to rebuke their dissipation on the racetrack. Turns out that they should actually have been instructing them in exotics strategy, and how to turn Ragozins to riches. Go west, young man, but be sure you don't miss Arapahoe Park on the way.

(Listen to this column as a podcast.)

For many of us, a stake in the breeding, raising or trading of Thoroughbreds is gamble enough. But it is good to be reminded of the stimulation available in the constant variables of our business, and to consider the different factors that govern our decisions.

To what extent, after all, are those decisions truly our own? How much do we act according to our innate or inherited nature–the stuff, in other words that we bring into the world with us–and how much are we simply conditioned by learned experience; by patterns of conduct absorbed from the environment?

Why is it, for instance, that modern horsemen are so much more reluctant to ask questions of the Thoroughbred as demanding as those routinely set by their predecessors? Trainers today may think that they are simply making a rational judgement on a developing body of evidence; whether because they view the breed as less robust, or their own methods as more sensitive. But the chances are that they have, to a large degree, simply responded to the evolving habits of mentors and peers.

Take, for instance, nothing less than the two best horses in the world. One is set to bow out at Ascot on Saturday; the other will quite possibly do the same at Keeneland in three weeks' time. Both, it should be stressed, have had their talent drawn out with consummate skill. But while both are routinely compared with specters past, they won't actually explore their utmost capacities even against such horses as happen to be alive and well.

Okay, so the fact that they operate in different disciplines means that a direct showdown between Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) and Flightline (Tapit) would nearly always, even in bolder epochs, have been a bridge too far. But the fact is that Flightline has entered the pantheon in no more than 431 seconds; while Baaeed, though slower to blossom than Frankel (GB), has like that champion been confined to home soil and a pool of competition in which his supremacy has long been apparent.

To be fair, Flightline has tested the cramped parameters of his career with as much ambition as they permit: from Del Mar to Belmont, from six furlongs to 10. Baaeed, for his part, has followed precisely in the footsteps of Frankel at the age of four, running in the same five races and therefore only stepping up from a mile on his penultimate start. (Something that may well end up being true of Flightline.)

America's best, Flightline | Sarah Andrew

Baaeed's response to that new challenge hinted that he may only just have found his true metier. For a while, connections entertained the idea of probing a still deeper seam of stamina in Paris. In the event, they will have felt thoroughly vindicated, in having backed off, when the Arc was contested in such gruelling conditions. For some of us, however, even now there remains one stubborn question. If Baaeed were to win the G1 Qipco Champion S. with his customary leisure, then why on earth should he not proceed to the Breeders' Cup as well?

Remember that he began his career last year by winning four races between June 7 and July 30. Obviously he was a class apart, at that level, but he went about each assignment with equal gusto and has since often appeared the sort that keeps something in reserve. And this year, crucially, a three-week interval makes the Breeders' Cup far more feasible for any of the Ascot protagonists than when the card has been staged, with deplorable parochialism, just a fortnight beforehand.

Given the relative emphasis on speed between Keeneland and his race at York, the extra 300 yards of the GI Breeders' Cup Turf, if technically uncharted, would only play to Baaeed's strengths. There's obviously a degree of presumption, given that he has a serious job to do at Ascot, but I can only think of one reason why the question shouldn't at least be asked once safely making the winner's circle–and that's a reluctance to go looking for unnecessary trouble with so precious and cherished a champion.

But if that is indeed the case, then it just shows how inimical are the instincts of modern horsemen both to the genetic proving of the breed, and to the promotion of the sport. Baaeed wouldn't lose a cent in his stud value, if the gamble happened to backfire; and nor would he be remotely diminished in the estimation of posterity. He would have nothing to lose, and much to gain–in terms both of his own stature, and our communal hopes of reaching a wider audience.

In principle, exactly the same was true of Frankel. As it was, however, the Breeders' Cup was never a realistic option. For one thing, it was staged only two weeks after he ran on bad ground at Ascot; and his trainer, of course, then had heartbreaking mitigation for his conservative instincts. But I've always said he ran like a dirt horse, and would have lapped them in a GI Breeders' Cup Classic instead won by Fort Larned (E Dubai).

In both cases, then, we are left with the same suspicion: that an immaculate record increasingly becomes an impediment to maximum fulfilment. There's no need to reprise a list of the great champions, from Secretariat down, that ran (and risked) enough to forfeit the formal veneer of invincibility. But let's just remind ourselves that an unbeaten horse is very different from an unbeatable one.

As we've said, the kind of thinking that shapes decision-making–our priorities, our assumptions–will typically embed prevailing norms. And these do change, radically if gradually, from generation to generation. In its earliest days, the Thoroughbred was asked to run three heats of four miles in a single day. Nobody would suggest doing that now; and nor would anyone seriously expect Baaeed to take on Flightline at his own game.

Nobody? Actually, that's not quite true. But if he were mine, I guess that wouldn't be the only time I came down in the morning to find that bottle waiting reproachfully on the table.

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Baaeed Heads Champion Cast

Shadwell's Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) will conclude his racing career against eight rivals in Saturday's £1.3-million QIPCO Champion S. at Ascot, with the unbeaten luminary drawn in stall one as the final fields were confirmed on Thursday morning. Like the 2016 hero Almanzor (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}), the William Haggas flagbearer is on the inside in a contest that should be staged on ground no worse than soft and very likely good-to-soft. Last year's Derby and King George VI & Queen Elizabeth S. hero Adayar (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) is in six in the day's feature event, with a favourable draw in four also handed to James Wigan and Ballylinch Stud's Bay Bridge (GB) (New Bay {GB}).

Haggas is clearly bullish on his chances and said: “I think people want to see a really, really top horse stay unbeaten and win in style. Staying unbeaten is terribly important now that we are nearly there. Frankel obviously was unbeaten, but few are in a career at that level. It would be sad if he was beaten, but not for the people who beat him.

“I respect Adayar very much, as I respect Bay Bridge, who looked a fantastic horse at Sandown, but they've got to go to beat him.”

Cheveley Park Stud's G1 Coronation S. and G1 Prix Jacques Le Marois heroine Inspiral (GB) (Frankel {GB}) meets nine in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II S., with the 2020 hero The Revenant (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) and Modern Games (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) heading the opposition, providing the underfoot conditions suit.

“Modern Games will be declared and we will be on weather watch from thereon,” trainer Charlie Appleby told the Nick Luck Daily podcast Wednesday. “If the description was soft then he would be unlikely to run, but the decision will be made potentially on the day.”

Inspiral's trainers John and Thady Gosden also have the returning 'TDN Rising Star' Emily Upjohn (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) in the G1 QIPCO British Champions Fillies & Mares S., which has attracted a field of 14, while in the G1 QIPCO British Champions Sprint S. last year's winner Creative Force (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) is one of 18. The opening G2 QIPCO British Champions Long Distance Cup sees Trueshan (Fr) (Planteur {Ire}) bid for a third consecutive renewal against KHK Racing's St Leger hero Eldar Eldarov (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}). The former's participation was cemented with the additional precipitation Wednesday.

“It should be fine,” said Trueshan's trainer Alan King. “They had 4-5mm last night so it's good-to-soft, soft, and that should be fine for him. I don't see it drying out much.”

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Kyprios The Eyecatcher in Latest Longines WBRR

The latest edition of the Longines World's Best Racehorse Rankings (WBRR) were released Thursday, with winners from Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe weekend climbing into prominent positions on the list.

Kyprios (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) ran his seasonal record to six wins from as many appearances with a spectacular performance in the G1 Qatar Prix du Cadran over 4000 metres, where he had some 20 lengths between him and the next-nearest competitor. Also victorious this term in the G1 Gold Cup, G1 Goodwood Cup and G1 Irish St Leger, the 4-year-old was raised from a rating of 120 to 124, equal-seventh with G1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Diamond S. hero Pyledriver (GB) (Harbour Watch {Ire}), dual Japanese Group 1 winner Titleholder (Jpn) (Duramente {Jpn}) and Torquator Tasso (Ger) (Adlerflug {Ger}).

The latter was beaten narrowly into third in defence of his title in this year's Arc by Kirsten Rausing's outstanding Alpinista (GB) (Frankel {GB}), who is new to the WBRR on a rating of 123 following her narrow success over Vadeni (Fr) (Churchill {Ire}, 125) in the ParisLongchamp feature. Her season also includes victories in the G1 Darley Yorkshire Oaks and G1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.

Courtesy of his towering score in the GI Ricoh Woodbine Mile in Canada last month, Godolphin's Modern Games (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) now sits on 122 as he prepares for Saturday's G1 Queen Elizabeth II S. and a clash with the 3-year-old filly Inspiral (GB) (Frankel {GB}, 121) at Ascot, with a return trip to the Breeders' Cup likely thereafter. 'TDN Rising Star' Taiba (Gun Runner) has also been rated on 122 on the strength of his three-length tally in the GI Pennsylvania Derby last month.

In Australia, Godolphin's Anamoe (Aus) (Street Boss) took the G1 Might and Power S. at Caulfield in Melbourne Oct. 8, adding to his wins in the G1 Winx S. and G1 George Main S. Now rated 121, the homebred is expected to be favoured for the G1 Ladbrokes Cox Plate at Moonee Valley on Saturday week.

'Rising Star' Flightline (Tapit, 139), who continues his build-up to the GI Breeders' Cup Classic Nov. 5; and Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}, 135), who swansongs in Saturday's G1 QIPCO British Champions S., remain at the top of the WBRR.

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