Read an extract from Timeform's Horses To Follow for the 2025 Flat season that focuses on senior racing analyst Simon Walker's selection Mount Atlas.
The black colours with the gold cross of American owner-breeder Paul Mellon will always be most closely associated with his 1971 Derby winner Mill Reef whose Timeform rating of 141 makes him one of the best Flat performers of the twentieth century. When Mellon died in 1999, his colours were bequeathed to Mill Reef’s trainer Ian Balding and are now those of the Kingsclere Racing Club which leases the horses bred by wife Emma’s Kingsclere Stud. The likes of Elm Park, Side Glance and Passing Glance are some of the notable horses bred at Kingsclere and if Mount Atlas, who’s out of a mare by Group 2 mile winner Passing Glance, makes the expected improvement at four he could well be joining them.
By Derby winner Masar, Mount Atlas was unraced at two and made an inauspicious start to his career at three when sent off at 100/1 for a novice at Windsor in which he clipped heels and unseated his rider. But he got the opportunity to show more promise on his next outing and then got off the mark in ready fashion in a maiden at Redcar in May. A good third in a valuable novice at Kempton next time, Mount Atlas progressed again to win a class 2 handicap at Ascot in July.
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He did well to come from the back of the field in a steadily-run race to beat Insanity half a length and the form of that race worked out very well. The useful runner-up returned to Ascot to win at the following month’s Shergar Cup meeting while the third, Tabletalk, who’d run in the Derby, went on to win the Melrose at York.
Mount Atlas had just the one subsequent run when sent off favourite for the Old Rowley Cup at Newmarket in October. Kept fresh for the valuable three-year-old handicap, Mount Atlas moved strongly into the lead over two furlongs out but was headed entering the final furlong by Sun God, who’d shaped well in the Melrose and went on to win by three and three quarter lengths, though Mount Atlas himself pulled clear of the rest. Subsequently gelded, Mount Atlas is likely to improve further and win more races at around a mile and a half at four. He acts on soft ground but is yet to race on firmer than good. Andrew Balding
Simon Walker's analysis: “Those punters who had supported Mount Atlas into favouritism for the Old Rowley Cup at Newmarket in October must have been on very good terms with themselves as he tanked his way into contention only to see Sun God finding even more for pressure and forging away inside the final 100 yds, the pair fully four lengths and more ahead of the rest in what looked a typically strong renewal of that valuable end-of-season three-year-old handicap. It is hoped those losses are only lent, however, as Mount Atlas (who was unraced at two) is absolutely the sort that his yard will continue to improve in 2025, a big middle-distance handicap or two highly likely to come his way.”
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