QIPCO Champion Fillies & Mares Stakes – Ascot – Saturday 19th October

Kalpana has long been all the rage for the QIPCO British Champion Fillies & Mares Stakes at 2.35 at Ascot on Saturday, ever since she won the September Stakes impressively at Kempton Park. But slowly of late, the market is coming around to the realisation that she is vulnerable given the likely conditions on Saturday.

It appears to me as if Kalpana’s main asset is her pace and turn of foot, and ultimately 1m2f-1m4f on an easy track and on a sound surface is going to be her optimum I believe, where she can show her class.

With the ground soft all over, even allowing for switching to the unused inner track, and 10mm+ forecast both on Wednesday night and also Friday night, it is going to be the kind of ground that will blunt class and speed.

That said, if you possess that kind of ability, but also durability and the kind of constitution and stride to cope with it, then you’ll be right at home. Sir Mark Prescott’s Tiffany is exactly that kind of filly to my eye, and at 8/1 each-way generally she rates as an excellent 1-star * ante-post selection for WhichBookie.

Tiffany reminds me a little of Sir Mark Prescott’s Arc winner Alpinista, although to be fair Alpinista was already good enough to be contesting Listed and Group contests as early as her back-end 2-year-old and early 3-year-old seasons. Tiffany has been slower to improve, and has done so through handicaps, but this season she has burst into life.

She had been taken to Germany to win a couple of Listed races before winning the Group 3 Hoppings Stakes at Newcastle, and then as a bit of an afterthought, Tiffany went to the Group 2 Lancashire Oaks just 8 days later.

It was a fiercely run contest on fast ground and into a steady headwind in the straight, and Tiffany travelled supremely well off that tempo (advertising her class), when having hit the front early enough, she was vulnerable late on to Queen Of The Pride, who had been ridden much quieter.

Clearly mindful of the calibre of filly he now possessed, Sir Mark freshened her up with a two month break before taking her to Germany again and cherry-picking her Group 2 win. 6 weeks on from that, there is every reason to think that Saturday’s Champion Fillies & Mares Stakes is Tiffany’s big day.

She will relish the conditions in my view, as she does have a rounded type of action, and in a race where there are plenty of solid fillies, but none (apart from Kalpana) who stand out from an ability perspective, Tiffany can combine her quality with an ability to grind it out better than most. At 8/1 each-way right now, I’d be surprised if she didn’t go off more like 5/1 on the day.