Brazen Beau remains the favourite for the Group 1 £525,000 The Diamond Jubilee Stakes (6 furlongs) at Royal Ascot on Saturday after fifteen runners made up the final field.
Brazen Beau has been marked as the favourite for The Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot. Photo by Sarah Ebbett.
Drawing the outside barrier in the straight six furlongs race shouldn’t worry the Chris Waller trained Brazen Beau who has won twice down the Flemington straight.
Ladbrokes have Brazen Beau the 9-4 favourite ahead of Dermot Weld’s well performed sprinter Mustajeeb (barrier 4) at 9-2 and the Aidan O’Brien trained Due Diligence (barrier 12) at 8-1.
Gai Waterhouse’s super colt Wandjina came up with gate ten and is listed as a 10-1 chance alongside of Tropics and Undrafted.
Leading Hong Kong jockey Joao Moreira has been aboard Brazen Beau in his two Group 1 wins, both down the Flemington straight, when he beat the three year olds in $500,000 Coolmore Stud Stakes (1200m) during the 2014 Melbourne Spring Carnival and again when he trounced his older rivals in the $1m Lexus Newmarket Handicap (1200m) in the Autumn.
But Moreira was required to ride in Hong Kong this weekend so connections handed the ride to the vastly experienced Craig Williams.
Williams is no stranger to the brilliant colt, having ridden him when second to Lankan Rupee in the Group 1 $500,000 Black Caviar Lightning (1000m) at Flemington prior to his win in the Newmarket Handicap.
Waller has been in England for the past week supervising Brazen Beau’s final lead up work and is very pleased with the colt’s preparation.
“The horse is exactly where we want him to be, he has put on weight over the last two days and hence for the reason for stepping up,” Waller told Racing Ahead.
“At this stage as you can sense, we are very happy with the way that he has settled in and we are looking forward to the raceday.”
Waterhouse is also delighted with the progress of Wandjina since he arrived at Newmarket and is pleased to see Damien Oliver arrive safely to partner the Snitzel colt at Royal Ascot.
Oliver through a scare into the Waterhouse camp when he was involved in a race fall at Bendigo last Thursday but the champion jockey escaped serious injury and was on the plane to England a few days later.
“He (Wandjina) is ready to go, and with Damien Oliver having arrived safe and sound in London, the team are ready to turn all our attention to the 1200m Diamond Jubilee Stakes on Saturday,” Waterhouse wrote on her blog.
