What a week of racing we have ahead of us at York this week with the highly anticipated Ebor Festival from Wednesday through to Saturday.
To kick things off we have the showcase race of Day One with the Juddmonte International Stakes and what a race it's set to be.
Sir Michael Stoute's CRYSTAL OCEAN (11/10) is the standout horse of the field declared for the 1m 2f contest. This is a horse who's incredibly never finished outside of the top three in all of his 16 races to date, winning eight of those including five Group 3 wins, a Group 2 win and most recently victory in the Group 1 Prince Of Wales's Stakes at Royal Ascot.
There was a fair bit of doubt surrounding him appearing at York but last week Sir Michael give him the all clear and he is undoubtedly going to be hard to beat here, especially after finishing just a neck behind super mare Enable in the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes last time out.
His closest market rival comes in the shape of John Gosden colt KING OF COMEDY (7/2). A close second behind Circus Maximus in the St James's Palace Stakes, he steps up to 1m 2f for the first time but it's clearly a distance which should suit, taking into account just how well he stayed on at Royal Ascot.
There's an astonishing 19 Group wins in total amongst the nine declared runners and the main Irish runner to keep an eye out for is AP O'Briens JAPAN (11/2). The Galileo colt won the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot then followed it up with a Group 1 success in the Juddmonte Grand Prix De Paris Stakes at Longchamp but the drop back down to a distance in which he's never won over against a field of this quality is quite off putting if you're looking at backing him.
Behind Japan in the betting is the likes of his stablemate and St James's Palace Stakes winner CIRCUS MAXIMUS who could potentially turn out to be immense each way value at around 9/1. Frankel won this race in 2012 and he has just one declaration in the race with the Mark Johnston trained ELARQAM. He'll be hoping for rain which is forecasted for York over the next couple of days but by the looks of it, it won't be enough to have a major effect on the going.
CHEVAL GRAND (25/1), LORD GLITTERS (25/1), REGAL REALITY (25/1) & THUNDERING BLUE (40/1) are the outsiders that make up the rest of the field in what is undoubtedly going to be one of the races of the festival.
