Joseph O’Brien and Maurice Regan combine with Starford in bid to land Australia’s prestigious Caulfield Cup

Ascot’s Qatar Champions Day may be a convoluted “climax” to the British flat season, but it’s hard to quibble with the mouth-watering prospect it throws up on Saturday.

Weeks of cross-channel turf action remain, including next weekend’s Group One Doncaster Futurity, so the showpiece event is hardly any sort of culmination in the strictest sense. The British trainers’ title race won’t even be technically complete until the end of the year.

But although 15 years of Champions Day has provided ample evidence of being an unreliable reflection of merit at the end of a long campaign – last year’s Sprint was won by a 200-1 shot and the QEII had a 100-1 winner – it is still a rarefied atmosphere of elite talent.

Just how lofty the stakes are was underlined by the Coolmore team paying out £70,000 (€83,000) to supplement Constitution River into the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes earlier this week only to then not bother to run him in it.

Instead, Aidan O’Brien has opted to keep the French Derby winner at 10 furlongs where he is the sole representative of the classic generation against outstanding older horses such as Ombudsman and Calandagan. It means the Irish Guineas winner Gstaad stays at a mile for the QEII.

Joseph O’Brien runs his own pair of classic winners, with Irish Oaks heroine Johanna Walsh trying to prevent Kalpana’s hat-trick attempt in the Filly & Mare. The Leger winner Highwayman takes on his elders in the Long-Distance Cup.

Robson Auigar’s Power Blue is the sole hope from this country in the Sprint, while Jim Bolger and Johnny Murtagh also take their chances against Kalpana with Sparan Nua and Believed, respectively.

The crucial ingredient is a decent racing surface unlikely to favour anything that needs extremes. Often prone to ultra-testing conditions, this is a shop window that won’t wind up mud-spattered. The focus instead is likely to be on the potential impact of past efforts on current performance.

Arc runner-up Bay City Roller has just 13 days to get over his Longchamp exertions in the Champion Stakes. Kalpana made light of running in the Arc a year ago but will have to be resolute to do so again and boost Andrew Balding’s hopes in the trainers’ championship.

The Englishman, chasing a first title, leads Aidan O’Brien by about £100,000. The Irish man is odds-on to win it for the ninth time.

“I think the Fillies & Mares is probably a must-win in terms of the trainers’ championship. Aidan sets such an incredibly high standard and is going into this crucial meeting with a much stronger hand than us,” Balding has admitted.

He is not represented in the Champion or the QEII, both of which are worth more than £1,000,000, so if O’Brien strikes in those, any hope Balding has of taking the fight to the bitter end may be futile.

The straightforward problem for the Irish man is the quality of opposition. Only the Hong Kong sprinter Ka Ying Rising, who lines up in Australia on Saturday morning, is officially superior to Ombudsman on global ratings.

Calandagan beat him in last year’s Champion Stakes and wound up the highest-rated thoroughbred in the world in 2025. Throw in Almaqam too, and Constitution River faces a daunting task to restore a once towering reputation.

Gstaad’s main threat could prove to be another of this year’s Guineas winners. Rayif landed the Poulains at Longchamp in May in mud. He beat older horses in the Marois at the height of summer. Crucially, Francis Graffard sends him to Ascot for just his fourth start of the season.

Christophe Soumillon steps in for the suspended Mickael Barzalona on Calandagan, Rayif and another Aga Khan Group One winner Samangan in the Sprint. Almeraq looks the benchmark in this, although his stable companion Division is no back number either.

Joseph O’Brien’s Group One Saturday will begin early at 7.15am Irish time when he tries to pull off a superb Australian hat-trick.

Twice a Melbourne Cup winner, and successful in the Cox Plate with State Of Rest, O’Brien attempts to land another of Australian racing’s iconic contests in the 150^th Caulfield Cup.

Starford carries Maurice Regan’s Newtowanner colours in the Aus$6 million (€3.7 million) handicap over a mile-and-a-half. Local rider Lachlan Neindorf rides the horse that won the Alleged Stakes earlier this year.

The sole Irish hope will have to overcome an unfavourable wide draw in 15 of the 18 runners. The English hope Enfjaar, the mount of Irish man Ray Dawson, fared better with an inside slot in one. There has never been an Irish-trained winner of the Caulfield Cup.

Gordon Elliott is on his weekend travels too, back to the Far Hills track in New Jersey where he saddled five winners on the prestigious American Grand National card a year ago. It included the big race with Zanahiyr, adding to Jury Duty’s win for Elliott in 2018.

Zanahiyr is back for another crack at a race due off at 9.05pm Irish time, although Jack Kennedy has opted to ride the Grade One winner Western Fold in the eight-runner contest.

Kennedy will be back to ride at Limerick’s Munster National programme on Sunday. where Anyway could prove the big-race solution under the season’s leading rider Darragh O’Keeffe.

Leopardstown’s Saturday action is an all-juvenile programme where the exciting Wall Street will be expected to score in the Group Three Eyrefield Stakes.