Juddmonte International on Almaqam’s radar
Ed Walker is confident he made the right decision to sidestep Saturday’s Coral-Eclipse with stable star Almaqam and is looking forward to taking on the best middle-distance horses in Europe later in the season.
Almaqam had a length and three-quarters to spare over subsequent Prince of Wales’s Stakes winner and Eclipse runner-up Ombudsman when landing the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes at the end of May, but the lack of rain since that victory has prevented a rematch.
Walker described the Sandown Group 1 as a “messy” race to watch and is content to bide his time with Almaqam, who could feature in a stellar Juddmonte International at York in August should ground conditions be in his favour.
“It was a pretty easy decision not to run him on Saturday,” said the Lambourn trainer. “We don’t want to run him on fast ground, so good to firm, firm in places was no good.
“It was a horrible race to watch and I was relieved not to be in it. I’d be confident the best horse won, but it was really messy. Neither Delacroix or Ombudsman had a good trip and the pace was muddling.
“We were desperate and ready to run but I made a couple of mistakes with him last year and I’m adamant not to make the same mistakes this time. We know he’s very good when there’s cut in the ground.”
Walker said it was far from easy to keep a horse at concert pitch for an extended period of time but will treat Almaqam as though he ran on Saturday as he looks for a suitable target at the end of the month.
“There’s three weeks until his next race, so I can let him down a little bit,” said Walker. “I’m not sure the King George at Ascot is the right race to test him over a mile and a half but it’s there as an option.
“On the same day you’ve got the Group 2 York Stakes over ten furlongs and he’s also in a Group 1 in Germany [Grosser Dallmayr-Preis – Bayerisches Zuchtrennen over a mile and a quarter] that weekend. Surely one of them will come up with some ease in the ground.
“My ideal route would be York. He’s won a Group 3 already so it’d be nice to win the Group 2 and then go back to York for the Juddmonte if it’s soft ground. That would be a really nice progression into a proper championship race.”
With Field Of Gold, Delacroix, Ombudsman and Calandagan all in the shake-up for York, the Juddmonte International is shaping up to be the race of the season and Walker would love to be involved.
“I would happily take on anyone on soft ground,” he added. “I’d be wary on good ground or faster, but I don’t think anything would frighten me on soft. I’ve always had a great belief in him.
“He was awesome in the Brigadier Gerard and just has an enormous engine. Everyone who has ridden him, including Ryan Moore, were very impressed by him and I do believe he’s a Group 1 horse.”
Walker believes Almaqam will be at his most potent in the autumn, with the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in October potentially the right time to test him over a mile and a half for the first time.
“From the Juddmonte you probably go to the Irish Champion Stakes and then either the Arc or the Champion Stakes at Ascot,” said the trainer. “I think he’ll be really interesting over a mile and a half. When Oisin Murphy hopped off him at Sandown he said, ‘This is an Arc horse’. Autumn is going to be his time and I just hope we get a couple of good cracks at it.”
