The widespread belief that the outcome of the Diamond JubileeStakes at Royal Ascot on Saturday week is a foregone conclusion received further supporton Monday when bookmakers started to bet on the race without Black Caviar , the brilliant, unbeaten racemare who arrived in Britain fromAustralia a few days ago. Bated Breath heads that market withWilliam Hill and he could well duck the challenge and run in theKing's Stand Stakes on the opening day of the meeting instead.Other bookies, meanwhile, are betting not on whether Black Caviarwill win, but by how far. Moonlight Cloud, trained in France by Freddy Head, is next in thelist without the favourite, adding to the sense that British yardsare preparing to yield to the inevitable. Yet there are still sometrainers willing to offer resistance and prevent the feature raceon the final day of the Royal meeting turning into the secondprocession of the afternoon. Mick Easterby, whose magnificent gelding Hoof It is likely to faceBlack Caviar both in the Diamond Jubilee and the July Cup atNewmarket three weeks later, is one of them. Hoof It, who ispart-owned by the golfer Lee Westwood, is currently top-priced at16-1 but he put up one of the finest weight-carrying performancesfor a very long time to win last year's Stewards' Cup and wasunlucky not to add a Group One victory in the Haydock Sprint Cup inSeptember. "You could run the Haydock race again 10 times and every time we'dwin," David Easterby, the trainer's son and assistant, said onMonday. "Black Caviar has got a fantastic reputation and it will bea real pleasure to run against her. If we manage to beat her, allwell and good, and she'll have another chance against us in theJuly Cup." The Easterbys will not hatch a plan to beat Black Caviar, but Davidbelieves there are at least two factors which give the field achance against the mare who is, according to the InternationalClassifications, the best sprinter on the planet. "We won't be looking for a way to beat her, there's no pointfocusing on that," he said. "We'll just try to make sure we run toour best possible performance and if that's good enough, fine. "What's she's had to do which we won't is the travelling and she'llalso be running for the first time on a surface that is definitelyunique, which is the nicest way to describe how they have alteredthe straight course at Ascot. "It's a course that gets more fancied horses and favourites beatenand by significantly further than the average than any othercourse. Some horses go on it and some don't. "It's a completely new ball game for her and I have to say my oneworry [about Hoof It] is that last year's Wokingham [over the samesix-furlong track] was the only bad race he ran all season." The fact that the Diamond Jubilee has been won by horses priced at25-1, 33-1 and 20-1 in the past four years lends some support toEasterby's point and one horse with a proven affinity for thecourse at Ascot is Society Rock, who finished second in 2010 andthen won last year's renewal. "Apparently Black Caviar is unbeatable," James Fanshawe, SocietyRock's trainer, said on Monday, though not with the air of someonewho truly believes it. "But Society Rock has been at his best atthe Royal meeting for the last two years and he seems very well, sowe'll just hope that he's in the same sort of form this year. "We're 12 days away, so we'll have to see how things pan out. BlackCaviar has got tremendous pace, but we can't make any plans orthink about tactics until we get much closer to the race. We'llneed to see where we're drawn and how the ground is on the day, butI'm sure there will be a few more besides us that will be turningup and ready to take her on.". We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Fiber Optic Lighting Kits , China T8 Led Light Tube for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits T10 Led Tube.
Related Articles -
Fiber Optic Lighting Kits, China T8 Led Light Tube,
|