John Gosden has decided against running Ombudsman in the Breeders' Cup Turf at Keeneland, opting instead for a tentative plan to target the Japan Cup in November after the horse's Champion Stakes win at Ascot

Ombudsman, brilliant winner of the Champion Stakes at Ascot, will not have his swansong at the Breeders' Cup after a U-turn by trainer John Gosden.

In the wake of the Godolphin horse's defeat of last year's world's best racehorse, Calandagan at Ascot, Gosden had indicated that Ombudsman would tackle 1m4f for the first time in the Breeders' Cup Turf at Keeneland, before probably heading to stud next year.

However, in an abrupt change of mind, the Newmarket trainer has now concluded that the race, 14 days after the Champion Stakes, will come too soon, and he is now floating the idea of a tilt at the Japan Cup instead.

Gosden said: "It's very simple, the horse ran four days ago at Ascot and he would have to work tomorrow, get on a plane for a cross-Atlantic flight, quarantine and it's not fair to ask him to do that then ask him to run back within 14 days with a long journey in the middle.

"In fairness, we felt having discussed it with everyone, we shouldn't be trying to do that with him after he ran such a brilliant race in the Champion Stakes and we could consider the Japan Cup now.

"There's plenty of time to that now in November, but to rush him over to America and put him through that we didn't think was in the best interests of the horse."

He went on: "Japan would be a tentative plan and no more than that. It's the only other race this year he could really run in and an important international race, so to that extent it's a tentative plan.

"After that we're probably talking retirement and it would have been nice to go to America, we wanted to go and do it because we like the Breeders' Cup a lot, but the horse has to come first."