Champions Day review: David Ord on Kyprios and Charyn

It was a QIPCO British Champions Day run in glorious, autumn sunshine but on testing ground that was eventually changed to soft, heavy in places after torrential rain through the morning.

When driving towards the car park around 9am caution was advised with standing water on most roads and leaves tumbling from the trees. It’s a rail network’s greatest fear.

But not Kyprios’ nor Charyn’s. Come rain or shine, fast ground or hock deep mud, they find a way to get the job done.

And that’s exactly what an afternoon like this is all about.

There was a sense of inevitability as the former sat on the quarters of stablemate and pacesetter The Euphrates to the home turn in the opening Long Distance Cup before taking aim at the finishing post two-and-a-half furlongs away down a stamina-sapping straight.

Try as they might, they’re not going to get to him. And even if they do, the chestnut would have reserves left.

His remarkable back-story and the life-threatening illness suffered last spring has been well documented. His defeat at the hooves of Trawlerman in this very race last year led to some understandable questions at the time about how bright the fire still burned.

Seven runs this season, seven victories including Group Ones at Royal Ascot, Goodwood, the Curragh and ParisLongchamp. We have our answer.

Saturday’s contest was 14 days after he’d won the Prix du Cadran in France. As he bounced out of the winners’ enclosure, sending a bowler-hatted attendant tumbling away in a desperately late bid to evade the six-year-old, you sensed he wanted to go around again.

He probably could have.

Matt Chapman on ITV congratulated Aidan O’Brien on the Coolmore tactics, asking whether he’d turned to the lads after half a furlong and said 'we’ve mullered them.'

The master of Ballydoyle didn’t, you’ll be surprised to read, answering instead about the open gameplan they’d gone out with. It wasn’t their fault no one wanted to go on – so go on they did.

But it begs the question, how do you beat a peak-form Kyprios? His own trainer wasn’t offering any helpful hints.

“He has a lot of speed. If you want to walk, he’ll walk, if you want to go fast, he’ll stay,” he smiled.

Despite Chapman’s pressing, this wasn’t merely a tactical triumph, a story of the winner being handed a game-changing advantage by his own enterprising team and hyper-caution from elsewhere.

It was because a champion stayer, who has clear blue water between himself and his rivals, had delivered yet again. A horse can make the running or drop in, who thrives on his racing.

What’s the tactical scenario by which Sweet William or Trawlerman would have won on Saturday? I don’t have one.

Nor it seemed was there a hole anywhere in Charyn as he sauntered to the front two furlongs out in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes with Silvestre De Sousa merely a passenger.

But it got tough from there. French raider Facteur Cheval glided through to challenge, and for a stride or two inside the distance threatened to go past.

It’s what Charyn did then that marks the difference between champions and the rest. He dug deep and found more.

At the line he was a widening two lengths to the good of a rival who had already cashed in his chips. Guts and glory.

For Roger Varian it was an afternoon to savour. Twelve months ago he was welcoming King Of Steel back into the winners’ enclosure after he’d provided Frankie Dettori with a fairytale farewell.

But the relationship with Amo Racing went sour after that colt suffered an injury in the spring, then Sheikh Mohammed Obaid, a man not known to be shy with his own expulsion tool, decided his horses at Carlburg Stables would be better served by their own yard switch.

Two huge owners for any handler to lose in one season.

But Varian took the losses with dignity and calming words. He’d already won a 1000 Guineas with Elmalka for the Maktoum family but it’s Charyn who has provided the perfect response.

From Doncaster in March to Ascot in October he’s been magnificent. Racing seven times, winning five, arguably unlucky in the other two, and improving his Timeform master rating by around a stone in the process.

It’s a sport in which all participants know about the contrasting fortunes a single day can hold – let alone a season – and Varian, through 2024, has learned to enjoy the good ones.

“It's a tough game and ups and downs every month and every week but I've got great people around me, great people at home, support and some wonderful owners and I'm very lucky to train some special horses and you pick yourself up when you take a knock and you get on with it,” he said.

“I could reflect on the year and say yes, it's had its challenges but it's been a fantastic year; we've got one of the top milers in Europe if not the world and we're housing an English Classic winner amongst plenty of other good stuff, so we've had a good year. It's had its ups and downs but we're here again in the winner's enclosure again on Champions Day.”

And the QIPCO Champion Stakes itself showed how easy it is for the cards to fall the other way.

Calandagan found himself boxed in against the far rail for much of the race, but daylight came in time for him to hit the front inside the distance and seemingly set to go on and win well.

But in behind unconsidered 40/1 outsider Anmaat had also been forced to sit and suffer for the bulk of the final three furlongs, filling his own lungs in the process.

And his withering run, delivered seven or eight strides later, carried him past the French raider and gave Owen Burrows a real headache in choosing between Saturday afternoon or Hukum’s King George at the same venue last season as being his career highlight.

Economics, who had led the home challenge, returned with blood in his nose and William Haggas and his team returned to Newmarket with more questions than answers.

Varian didn’t. He and O’Brien arrived at Ascot with two seasoned gunslingers and headed home with two of the season’s most prestigious prizes in the bag.

Two champions who shone on a sun-kissed Champions Day.

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