Friday’s Coronation Cup at Epsom shook up the pecking order among Timeform’s top-rated older horses over middle-distances, for the second time in as many weeks following Luxembourg’s Tattersalls Gold Cup victory the previous weekend.
Only five runners went to post at Epsom, but four of them had previously won at the top level in a high-quality field, including the winner Emily Upjohn, who returned better than ever after nearly seven months off as she became the first filly to win the Coronation Cup since In The Groove in 1991.
The most impressive aspect of her performance was the manner in which she quickened to lead over two furlongs out, just needing to be kept up to her work from there to beat last year's Irish Derby winner Westover by a length and three-quarters.
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Most notably, the overall time was 2.63 seconds quicker than the Oaks run over the same course and distance later on the card, with virtually all of that difference coming in the final three and a half furlongs to highlight that the winner demonstrated a rare turn of foot.
It was every inch a high-class performance and Emily Upjohn advanced her Timeform rating to 128 (from 120) which identifies her as a leading contender for all the big middle-distance races still to come in 2023 in this sort of form.
For context, when her 3-lb sex allowance is factored in, Emily Upjohn comes out on top in this division ahead of Luxembourg (130), Bay Bridge (129), Hukum (129), Vadeni (129), Adayar (128), My Prospero (128) and Desert Crown (127p).
Though disappointing in the race in 2022, the King George looks an obvious target for a filly who has raced exclusively at a mile and a half since filling the runner-up spot in last year's Oaks, though the way she shaped here suggests she'll just as effective over a mile and a quarter when the situation demands it, too.
That brings into the equation a race like the Eclipse and raises the fascinating prospect of a clash at Sandown with one or both of the Derby winners from Epsom and Chantilly, Auguste Rodin and Ace Impact, respectively.
🏆🇫🇷 Wow! ACE IMPACT storms home to land the Qatar Prix du Jockey Club, reeling in the front-running Big Rock at Chantilly!
— Sporting Life Racing (@SportingLife) June 4, 2023
🥇 It's a sixth victory in the French Derby for trainer Jean-Claude Rouget, and a third for Cristian Demuro.pic.twitter.com/9oBtcdrIqI
Auguste Rodin has been awarded a Timeform rating of 125p after his Epsom triumph – pretty much on standard for a Derby winner in the past decade – and that figure was matched by Prix du Jockey Club hero Ace Impact, who showed much-improved form up in grade to maintain his unbeaten record, forging clear late on to land the spoils by three and a half lengths.
Like his stable's last couple of winners of the Prix du Jockey Club, Sottsass and Vadeni, Ace Impact looks another high-class colt and his entries in the Eclipse and Irish Champion Stakes suggest a performance like this wasn't entirely unexpected.
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