There remains much to look forward to on the racing front as we move further into July. This week sees the July Festival take to the Newmarket stage, while the Qatar Goodwood Festival offers a Panama-hat-laden feast as July turns to August.
Excellent as those events promise to be, it is the greatest meeting in the north that may stage the most enthralling head-to-head clash of the summer months.
International Excellence in York Highlight
Regularly amongst the highest-class contests to take place anywhere in the world, the Juddmonte International has fallen to such racing luminaries as Giant’s Causeway, Sea The Stars, Frankel, and Baeed since the turn of the century alone.
Offering Group 1 prestige and an impressive £1.25 million prize pool, this 1m2f cracker invariably attracts a stellar cast of middle-distance performers. While the quality of previous editions sets a high benchmark, the current list of 2025 entries suggests we could be in for a truly vintage renewal.
Fantastic Field Steps Up in Trip
In many years, it can be tough to pick out a single standout performance at the Royal Ascot Festival. However, with all due respect to Trawlerman and Ombudsman, Field Of Gold drew the biggest gasps from the crowd in 2025.
Unlucky to finish second in the 2000 Guineas, this John & Thady Gosden runner put that right in the Irish 2000 at the Curragh. Sent off as the odds-on favourite for the St James’s Palace Stakes on the back of that effort, most expected him to win. However, few could have anticipated the ease with which he would master a talented field of rivals. Sauntering into contention at the 2f pole, he put the race to bed with an exhilarating turn of foot, which drew comparisons with the mighty Frankel.
Field Of Gold has some way to go before justifying such hyperbole. However, he is the clear favourite to follow in the hoofprints of the brilliant Frankel, who dismissed the opposition by seven lengths in the 2012 edition of this. On form, he is tough to fault, but unlike a few others in the lineup, he has yet to tackle this 1m2f trip.
Delacroix to Paint Another Masterpiece
Boasting super stallion Dubawi as his sire and the US wonder mare Tepin as his dam, Delacroix boasts an eye-catching pedigree – even by the lofty standards at Ballydoyle.
Kicking off his three-year-old campaign with back-to-back wins in Group 3 company, he appeared primed to deliver on that pedigree potential in the Epsom Derby. In the end, it didn’t quite work out that way. As stablemate Lambourn powered to an all-the-way victory, Delacroix floundered on the track and seemingly failed to stay the 1m4f trip.
With his bubble burst, Delacroix had questions to answer as he stepped back down in distance for the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown. He answered them in emphatic style in a race where everything went against him. Expected to race up with the pace, he instead found himself trapped behind runners from an early stage. By the time he had received a hefty bump from a rival, stumbled as a result, and switched wide in the straight, a win appeared improbable, to say the least.
Such adversity would have ended the challenge of most colts – but not Delacroix. Producing a jet-propelled effort once in the clear, he made up around five lengths inside the final furlong to grab Prince Of Wales’s Stakes winner, Ombudsman, close home. The winning margin may not have matched that of Field Of Gold at Royal Ascot, but, in many ways, this effort was at least as impressive.
Hailing from the yard of seven-time Juddmonte International winner Aidan O’Brien, Delacroix sits third in the market currently. Many are sure to feel there is more value there than with the jolly.
Group 1 Winners Add to Mouthwatering Lineup
The Field Of Gold vs Delacroix tagline seems sure to appear extensively in the build-up to the 2025 Juddmonte International. However, it may be risky to label this a two-horse race.
Following his success at Royal Ascot, Ombudsman was granted a rating of 128, making him the highest rated racehorse on the planet. One narrow defeat in a messy event at Sandown shouldn’t detract from that blistering Princes Of Wales’s Stakes victory.
Moving further down the list, we find French star Calandagan, who finally broke his Group 1 duck in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud last time. We also have fellow French colt Daryz, who has yet to taste defeat in four outings, and Almaqam, who mastered Ombudsman in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes in May.
Wednesday, 20th August, is the date in the diary for this potentially mouthwatering affair that already has us salivating at the prospect of a truly brilliant contest.