2009 Ascot Gold Cup Preview

It’s Ladies Day at Ascot Today, which means strange hats, lots of champagne and the biggest stayers' race in the United Kingdom – the Ascot Gold Cup.

All the attention will be on three times Gold Cup champion, Yeats, as he goes in search of a fourth consecutive victory in this race. Sentiment rather than sense appears to be ruling the betting markets, which have priced the 8-year-old as 2/1 favourite to win the race.

While the Gold Cup veteran probably has the class to make a real go of it in 2009, we think he’s more likely to place than to win.

The markets suggest that a Yeats place will leave Patkai and Geordieland battling for the title, with these horses coming into the Gold Cup on the back of a 1-2 in the Henry II Stakes.

Neither horse is priced well enough to pay out a profit on a placed finish in an each-way bet, which suggests that place bets or fore-/tri-casts may be the way to get the best value from the favourites.

There’s huge value further back in the field with Saeed bin Suroor’s Eastern Anthem the pick of the long shots with 4 wins from his last 6 starts, but some questions over his ability to take the step up to the 2 mile + Gold Cup trip.