Royal Champion

17th-Sep-2022

You can see why Phantom Flight is all the rage, he is young and unexposed and he is fashionable and progressive, and he won his latest race at York by five lengths.

That said, he is probably going to have to progress again on the bare form of that is he Is going to beat Royal Champion, and Roger Varian’s horse should be closer to the favourite in the market than he is in my book.

Royal Champion is progressive himself, even though he is a year older than Phantom Flight.  His last two runs have been in Group 3 contests, and they have been two of the best runs of his seven-race career to date.  He finished a close-up third behind a talented pair in Regal Reality and Grocer Jack at Windsor last time, the three of them clear.  A repeat of that run should take him close today, but there is every chance that he will come forward again for the run.

To put their respective abilities into context, Phantom Flight was raised by 10lb for his latest win, and that puts him just 3lb ahead of Royal Champion, whose mark was left unchanged after his Windsor run. 

It is not a two-horse race, Euchen Glen is interesting dropping in trip after he had an unlucky passage at Haydock last time, and Maries Diamond comes into it, but I would have had Royal Champion closer in the market to Phantom Flight than he is, and he is the bet.

ROYAL CHAMPION WON (ADV 7/2, SP 9/4)