King George 2013 Preview

What's that coming over the Hill? - Supplemented Hillstar can step up and win the King George

Just before the time of writing this preview the 2013 renewal of the King George lost a lot of its gloss with the terrible career-ending injury to favourite St. Nicholas Abbey.

At the time of writing it is unknown whether the injury will also be life-ending, but hopefully St. Nic can be saved and can go on to the stud career I always expected of him.

This year’s King George was already just missing something for me and with St. Nic now out too it really does feel a little lackluster. That said, it does look competitive stuff and could end up being a wide open renewal of a race that has provided some real thrills over the last few years.

The race has always had a distinctly international flavour and this year’s renewal is no different, and what better place to start than with the highest rated horse in training in the world Cirrus Des Aigles.

Eclipse Preview

You Can Call Me Al - Al Kazeem can make it 3 straight Group 1s in the Eclipse

Last year’s Coral-Eclipse was won in battling style by John Gosden’s Nathaniel on his first start of the campaign. This year’s renewal won’t feature any returning stars but will however pretty much be a re-run of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes from Royal Ascot two weeks ago.

In that respect there’s not overly much more you can say about the leading protagonists from the Royal meeting’s Wednesday feature that wasn’t said then, because if Al Kazeem turns up in the same form he’s been in so far this season, as he did in the Prince of Wales’s, he’ll be extremely hard to get the better of; at a track he’s already recorded a victory at this season when landing the Gordon Richards Stakes.

The presence of Mars does add a little more intrigue to proceedings with him representing the classic generation and having run well all season pitched in at the highest level, and with a favourable weight for age allowance here over what could potentially be his optimum trip he could be set to maybe spring a little bit of an upset.