Golden oldie Yeats can join the greats

Yeats can defy both his advancing years and the strong French challenge to equal Sagaro's record of three wins in the Ascot Gold Cup at 3.45 tomorrow.

Johnny Murtagh's mount has been the outstanding stayer on the global stage for the past two years and the seven-year-old still looked in top form when winning on seasonal debut in a Listed event at Navan in April.

Murtagh will be the third different jockey to ride Aidan O'Brien's star stayer in as many Gold Cups, as Kieren Fallon and Mick Kinane did the steering in 2006 and 2007.

But Yeats is a very straightforward mount who possesses both class and stamina in equal measure.

However, only one horse, Drum Taps, has won this Group 1 contest as a seven-year-old since World War II, although relatively few of that age have tried to succeed.

The biggest threat to Yeats's hattrick bid is Andre Fabre's French raider Coastal Path who is unbeaten in all six starts to date, but crucially has never run over further than two miles and with an extra four furlongs to travel here is an unknown quantity.

If this were over two miles the four-year-old would probably be sent off favourite, but this extreme distance may be beyond him.

The best of the Brits could be Geordieland, who finished runner-up 12 months ago, whilst in the middle of a 15-race losing sequence.