Kuwait Trooper ready to spring Cup surprise

13 April 2012

The stayers' throne lies vacant and tomorrow's Ascot Gold Cup is ripe for a new pretender to emerge. Following champion Kayf Tara's retirement last year, there is room at the top. This Group One event traditionally unearths emerging talent, with four-year-olds dominating its roll of honour since World War II. This year's field isn't the strongest in recent memory, but certainly offers a few new names with which to conjure.

Marienbard aims to extend Godolphin's Gold Cup domination, emulating Classic Cliche's 1996 win and those of Kayf Tara in 1998 and 12 months ago. This year's colt produced a series of good efforts against St Leger types last year and had progressed again when, lacking race-fitness and idling in front, he took last month's Yorkshire Cup.

This is a whole new trip for him, but he's a worthy contender - as skinny odds reflect. But he's best with cut in the ground and conditions here are more akin to the St Leger, from which he returned a sore sixth.

Kuwait Trooper offers a value alternative. He's closely matched with Marienbard on certain lines of their three-year-old form. Yet while Frankie Dettori's mount trades at 7-2, the selection is 25-1.

The latter's fifth to Millenary in Goodwood's Gordon Stakes reads well. Gerard Butler's charge was barely more than three lengths adrift over a 12-furlong trip he found inadequate, but Marien-bard finished further behind the same horse in the St Leger.

Recent heavy rain contributed to Kuwait Trooper's defeat by smart Alva Glen next time. But he bounced back when chasing home subsequent Breeders' Cup Turf fourth, Mutamam, in the Group Three September Stakes. His Windsor seasonal debut was a promising third to classy types, Water Jump and Ela Athena, albeit at a respectable distance over too short a trip.

This is no stand-out case. Kuwait Trooper can run unaccountably badly, such as when last in the St Leger or, more worryingly, in the Queen's Vase at the 2000 Royal Meeting. But he promises to improve for the step up in trip, loves fast ground and trainer Butler provided third, Compton Ace, in last year's far hotter renewal of this event.

Kieren Fallon is a positive jockey booking.

The proven stayers and form horses are San Sebastian and Royal Rebel. The former is a standing dish at this meeting, having won the 1998 2m4f Ascot Stakes and 1999 Queen Alexandra over 2m6f when trained by Ireland's Michael Grassick. John Dunlop took charge of him last year when he finished fourth in the Gold Cup after being hampered. A saver is recommended.

Royal Rebel regularly scalped San Sebastian over shorter trips last term and, had then-pilot Mick Kinane not dropped his whip at a crucial stage, he would have beaten him over this distance in Longchamp's Prix du Cadran. This Gold Cup was the logical next step, but things haven't gone to plan.

You could say Royal Rebel takes after his owner, British Horseracing Board chairman Peter Savill - he's got his own mind about the game and is reluctant to take a steer, but he'll also doggedly stay the course until the bitter end. In recent months, while his owner controversially opposed the now potentially resurrected Go Racing media-rights deal, he's taken an aversion to racecourses.

He's mystified handler Mark Johnston with scorching homework but lacklustre track appearances. All else is perfect - ground, trip and trainer form. But the removal of the headgear that transformed him from reluctant runner to high-class stayer in his early days sounds a note of desperation. He's got the form, but has he got the will?

Of the remainder, stablemate Yavana's Pace is classy - he's unlucky not to have won a 12-furlong Group One - but had his stamina limitations exposed by Kayf Tara in last year's Irish St Leger.

Selections: 1, Kuwait Trooper; 2, San Sebastian; 3, Yavanas Pace.

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Kuwait Trooper ready to spring Cup surprise

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