DARING TACTICS FOR ULYSSES
IF Sir Michael Stoute was a punter you sense he would have a bit each-way on Ulysses this weekend.
The Coral Eclipse winner takes on his Royal Ascot conqueror Highland Reel in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at the same venue, and Stoute expects the four-year-old to run a big race.
As with his success at Sandown earlier this month, the colt will be delivered with as late a run as jockey Jim Crowley dare.
“We’re very happy with him,” said Stoute. “Some pundits are concerned about the extra two furlongs but he won a Group Three over the trip and ran a very solid race at Santa Anita in the Breeders’ Cup Turf over a mile and a half.
“He’s more settled this year, he relaxes better, so that will be to his advantage. I think the trip to Santa Anita did him a lot of good. I hoped that it would, and it did.”
Ulysses finished third behind Highland Reel in the Group One Prince Of Wales’s Stakes over 10 furlongs last month.
Of the winner, who is a market drifter due to the likely soft going, Stoute said: “Highland Reel is a very admirable horse, and very, very tough to beat. But we go there hopeful on Saturday.
“Like Aidan O’Brien, I hope there’s not too much rain at Ascot. I just don’t want the ground too testing for him.”
Alan Cooper, racing manager to the Niarchos Family which owns Ulysses, said: “In the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes, maybe Ulysses thought it was job done when he hit the front, and we had to hold him up a bit more.
“Jim Crowley did that when Ulysses won the Eclipse but even then he said to me “I would have liked to have been more patient”.
“As a horse matures, you learn more about him and what tactics he is comfortable with. A daring ride is the way it looks like.”
The dual Oaks-winning filly, Enable, is 11-10 (from 7-4) favourite with Coral for the race, after connections confirmed she would line up at Ascot.
Coral odds: 11-10 Enable, 4 Highland Reel, 5 Jack Hobbs, 7 Idaho, 15-2 Ulysses, 14 Frontiersman, 16 Hawkbill, 20 Benbatl, Desert Encounter, Permian, 33 bar.