Horse Racing

Excelebration Plans To Upset Unbeaten Frankel

Trainer Marco Botti is looking to take on the unbeaten Frankel with his horse Excelebration in both the Prix du Moulin at Longchamp in September and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot in October.

Frankel has beaten Excelebration at their last two meetings, however, the Exceed And Excel three-year-old showed much improvement when winning the Group 2 CGA Hungerford Stakes by six lengths last Saturday.

“He’s already proved that’s he a good horse, and he was very impressive,” Botti said.

“We left a little bit to work on, so I expect him to come on a lot for the run.

“We will go for another Group One race now.

“It could be the Prix du Moulin at Longchamp next month and maybe the QEII at Ascot. I’ve never had any doubt he’s a Group One horse.

“Frankel is not just a normal good horse, he is something else.

“To think we can beat him at this stage is probably a bit unrealistic but who knows, a race is a race.”

In further horse racing news, Census beat Brown Panther to win the Group 3 CGA Geoffrey Freer Stakes.

The win was confirmation for trainer Richard Hannon that Census is up to running in the Ladbrokes St Leger.

“The Leger is the plan,” said Hannon.

“I thought about going to York (Great Voltigeur), but I didn’t want the travelling for him.”

“He’d have needed a gallop, probably here, so I thought why not run him and earn a few quid.”

Racing manager for Census’ owners, Harry Herbert, believes the horse is beginning to show what he can really do.

“He was too far back at Ascot and we were giving Brown Panther 3lb,” Herbert said.

“He was babyish there and now he’s grown up. We’re really excited. The Leger here we come.”

Trainer Tom Dascombe is still planning to take runner-up, Brown Panther, to the St Leger.

“The Leger is in four weeks’ time and we’ll take him on again,” Dascombe said.

We’ve gone back to basics to try to get him to settle and relax.

“Obviously we’d have rather won, but we haven’t and there will be a certain amount of improvement in the next few weeks.

“He may well have needed that and we’re very happy.”

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