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| Nathaniel winning last year's King George with St. Nicholas Abbey back in third. |
The King George is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the flat calendar and is yet another huge Saturday race to look forward to in a month brimming with them.
Since it’s first running in 1951 we’ve see some fabulous renewals of Britain’s most prestigious open age flat race over the years, with the likes of Nijinsky, Mill Reef, Brigadier Gerard and Grundy all claiming victory in a golden age of middle distance flat horses in the 70s, while the 80s gave us Shergar and Dancing Brave.
Since the turn of the millennium there’ve been several fantastic performances posted in the race by modern greats. Montjeu’s 2000 win still leaves me with goosebumps when I watch it back and twelve months on his fellow super-sire Galileo took the 2001 running.
2010 is the year that perhaps lives on fondest in the memory as the brilliant Harbinger smashed a high-class field by a staggering 11 lengths breaking the track record in the process.
Last year’s renewal would by that standard have a lot to live up to and although it was a bitter-sweet afternoon with Goldolphin star Rewilding fatally breaking down on the run-in, then three-year-old Nathaniel sprang what to some was a shock by accounting for a select but top notch field.
2012 looks poised to be another fantastic instalment in the King George legacy and with Nathaniel looking likely to be back to defend his crown there’s no better place to start to look at this year’s potential runners than with the reigning Ascot king.