English and Irish 2000 Guineas winners Kameko and Siskin set for Goodwood showdown

KAMEKO is on course for a mouthwatering clash with Irish 2000 Guineas winner Siskin in the Qatar Sussex Stakes at Goodwood on July 29.

Andrew Balding’s 2000 Guineas hero, who subsequently had his stamina limitations exposed in the Investec Derby when fourth under champion jockey Oisin Murphy, will return to a mile at the prestigious meeting on the Sussex Downs.

Balding is still keen on a crack at the Juddmonte International over 10 furlongs at York next month and feels this race is in the ideal spot in the calendar to prepare for that.

Kameko, who will again be partnered by Murphy, already holds the distinction of having won Group One races on two entirely different surfaces.

He landed the Vertem Futurity Trophy at the end of last year when it was switched from a waterlogged Doncaster to Newcastle’s Tapeta all weather surface, pioneered by Yorkshire racing legends Michael and Joan Dickinson.

And then he won the Guineas on the turf at Newmarket just six days after the sport’s resumption following the Covid-19 lockdown. Meanwhile Siskin is, arguably, Ireland’s standout horse over a mile.

Sheikh Fahad’s racing and bloodstock adviser David Redvers told Nick Luck’s Daily Podcast: “There’s been lively in-house debate and Sheikh Fahad is keen to go with Andrew’s preferred option, which at the moment looks like it will be the Sussex.

“We need to have a meeting of the two Guineas winners to see which is the better and it looks to me like the Sussex is where we are leaning at the moment.

“It depends on other factors, such as weather and how the horse is, but at the moment it looks like that is where we are heading. Going to the Sussex gives you more time if you wanted to go to the Juddmonte, which has been Andrew’s target all along.

“He bounced out of the Derby very well and will have had quite a lot of quick runs if he does go to the Juddmonte, but a bit like Roaring Lion, Kitten’s Joy seems to make them out of tough stuff.

“If we’d gone to the Jacques le Marois it would have been a choice between that and the Juddmonte.

“This gives Andrew the option of doing both.”

Meanwhile, the Balding-trained Pivoine will bid to make racing history at York tomorrow when he lines up in the John Smith’s Cup under Rob Hornby.

Victorious in last year’s renewal of the prestigious 10-fur-long handicap, no horse has won successive renewals of the contest since its inception in 1960 when Fougalle prevailed.

Now the longest running commercial sponsorship in all of British horse racing, the field is headed by Sir Michael Stoute’s Solid Stone for jockey William Buick.

Bob Champion, the North Yorkshire jockey who defied cancer before winning a tear-jerking 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti, is on the brink of completing another milestone.

Now 72, his daily walks since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown have seen him accumulate nearly 1,000 miles and he’s been joined by, amongst others, his childhood friend Derek Thompson, the racing commentator and broadcaster.

The pair, who are based at Newmarket, are now inviting 10 members of the public to join them next Tuesday for the final four miles.

All proceeds riased will go towards the Bob Champion Cancer Trust.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor