Talking Horses: King George’s clash of generations at risk of losing its shine

A peak audience of 1.4 million viewers watched the opening episode of ITV’s docuseries “Champions: Full Gallop” on Friday evening. While it may be a stretch to suggest that it had much to do with an 18% boost to the crowd for Market Rasen’s Summer Plate meeting the following afternoon, the “Full Gallop glow” seems sure to keep the winter code on good terms with itself for some time yet.

But this is (in theory at least) the great British summertime, and there is rather less of a buzz in the air before one of the Flat’s showpiece events, the King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot. Any lingering hopes that Aidan O’Brien’s City Of Troy, an exceptional winner of the Derby and Eclipse, might line up for this year’s race were finally dashed when he failed to appear among the 11 five-day declarations on Monday.

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Although his stable companion Auguste Rodin, last year’s Derby winner, is a reasonable stand-in for Saturday’s race, Los Angeles – the Irish Derby winner after finishing third behind City Of Troy at Epsom – is another notable absentee.

The King George was conceived as a midsummer clash of the generations. In a long and illustrious history since the first running in 1951, it has been won by many of the middle-distance greats, including Ribot, Mill Reef, Nijinsky, Shergar, Nashwan, Dancing Brave and Galileo.

Ribot, in 1956, was also the first King George winner to follow up in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe a few months later, a double that has also been completed in the same season by Ballymoss (1958), Mill Reef (1971), Dancing Brave (1986), Lammtarra (1995), Dylan Thomas (2007) and Enable (2019).

An all-ages championship, though, needs all ages in the field, and while Sunway – the only three-year-old left in this year’s race – was the runner-up to Los Angeles in the Irish Derby, the bottom line of his three-year-old form is no wins from four starts.

Ascot’s loss at least promises to be York’s gain if City Of Troy lines up for the Juddmonte International as planned, and it is also the case that while Aidan O’Brien’s brilliant colt might have boosted the attendance on Saturday, in his absence there is a much more competitive race for punters to weigh up.

Auguste Rodin, after all, is hardly a rock-solid betting proposition after his blow out in this race last year, and there are five previous Group One winners within 4lb of the favourite on Timeform’s ratings. It is also a welcome chance for British fans to see Charlie Appleby’s globetrotting stalwart Rebel’s Romance, whose five Group One wins to date have been recorded in Germany (twice), the US, Dubai and Hong Kong.

While Sunway was a Group One winner as a juvenile and could yet have a significant say in the finish on Saturday, just one King George runner from the Classic generation is disappointing, to say the least, in a race with £1.25m in the prize fund. Seven of the 10 King George winners in the 1970s were three-year-olds, and they had a 50% strike rate in both the 1980s and 1990s. But there were just two between 2000 and 2009, and three between 2010 and 2019.

That might just be a quirk of the stats, but it is also hard to escape a sense that, as the global season is slowly redrawn, the King George is struggling to retain its status as Britain’s “most prestigious open-age flat race”.

The race is sandwiched between the Irish Derby and the Eclipse on one side, and the International at York on the other. Trainers perming two options from three for a top-class middle-distance horse of any age are always going to be tempted by a six or seven-week break between races, not least when there are post-Arc contests, including the Breeders’ Cup in November, to factor in as well.

All horses need a rest at some point in the year, and the Saudi Arabian government’s huge investment in its February showpiece meeting is increasingly likely to curtail the winter break for some of the best middle-distance horses around. It has been suggested that the gap between Royal Ascot in June and Ireland’s Champions Weekend in early September, or perhaps even the Arc in October, could eventually be seen as the best option for some down time.

Ascot will be alive to all these possibilities of course, and has some of the smartest minds in the business working to maintain its status as Britain’s premier Flat track, with a racing programme to match. But if it turns out that the King George is just at the wrong point in the calendar in an increasingly global and year-round sport, there may be only so much that they can do.