The Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park draws the dividing line between the spring classics and the important middle-distance races of summer and autumn, a 1 1/4-mile contest that brings together leading 3-year-olds and upper-crust older horses. The sophomore set gets 10 pounds from older male rivals, yet the antepost betting markets on Thursday said even that’s not enough.
Four-year-old Ombudsman scored a breakout victory last month at Royal Ascot in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and paid $16.80 on the American tote. You’ll get a small fraction of that price if, as widely expected, Ombudsman backs up his Ascot performance in the Eclipse, for which he traded at about even money with British bookmakers.
Just six horses passed the final Eclipse entry stage. Sosie is the other 4-year-old in the race and a distant second choice Thursday in antepost wagering. Three-year-olds Delacroix, Camille Pissarro, Ruling Court, and outsider Hotazhell complete the lineup.
Eclipse winners since 2000 split about evenly between the older horses and 3-year-olds, though 3-year-olds won the last four renewals. Aidan O’Brien trained three of those – St Mark’s Basilica, Paddington, and City of Troy last year – and sends out Delacroix and Camille Pissarro.
Favored in the Derby on June 7, Delacroix could only split the 18-runner field as his stablemate Lambourn won easily. Delacroix on March 30 had comfortably beaten Lambourn, and the Derby didn’t go as planned. Delacroix had done all his best work racing on or just off the lead, but at Epsom he never came close to the front, scrunched back to last in a crush of horses after about three furlongs. Top stable jockey Ryan Moore rides Delacroix, who figures to revert to his previous running style.
O’Brien has targeted French Group 1s with Camille Pissarro, who won the Jean-Luc Lagardere last fall and the Prix du Jockey Club last month, when Moore rode him. Christophe Soumillon, who piloted the colt in the Lagardere, should find himself placed at least a few lengths behind Moore.
Ruling Court upset star 3-year-old Field of Gold in the one-mile 2000 Guineas, but while he’s bred for this longer trip, Ruling Court hasn’t hit his Guineas level, or come especially close to it, in four other starts.
Sosie won a pair of French Group 1s to start his campaign, in his last start beating the John and Thady Gosden-trained Sardinian Warrior by one length. The Gosdens also train Ombudsman, a considerably stronger rival than Sardinian Warrior.
Kept with lesser competition last year at age 3, Ombudsman won all four of his starts, and while he lost for the first time in his 2025 debut, the Brigadier Gerard, his second-place finish to the good horse Almaqam suggested Ombudsman had come forward this year.
The Prince of Wales was far more than a suggestion. Trapped along the inside rail in upper stretch, Ombudsman got stopped several times trying to split gaps and make his run, but when jockey William Buick finally got his mount outside and into the clear, Ombudsman roared to a two-length victory.
The Brigadier Gerard, perhaps more than coincidentally, also is held at Sandown Park. Managing talented horses like Ombudsman is old hat for John Gosden, and an older horse will break the string of 3-year-old winners in this Eclipse.
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