Owen Burrows hoping for soft ground for Anmaat’s Champion Stakes defence

Owen Burrows is hoping for rain at Ascot to give Anmaat the best possible chance of successfully defending his crown in the Qipco Champion Stakes.

A shock 40-1 winner of the Champions Day showpiece last season, the seven-year-old has gone on to prove that triumph was no fluke by finishing second in both the Tattersalls Gold Cup and the Prince of Wales’s Stakes earlier in the season and again on his return in last weekend’s Irish Champion Stakes.

Anmaat finished best of the rest behind star three-year-old Delacroix at Leopardstown, beaten just three-quarters of a length, and Burrows is pleased with how his stable star has recovered from those exertions.

He said: “He’s grand, it’s a bit gutting to keep finishing second in these Group Ones but I can’t be anything but proud of him because he’s run an absolute stormer again.”

While it remains to be seen whether Delacroix will turn up at Ascot on October 18, his Juddmonte International conqueror Ombudsman and Francis-Henri Graffard’s King George hero Calandagan have been confirmed as intended runners.

Burrows acknowledges Anmaat will have his work cut out in his bid to become the first back-to-back winner of the Champion Stakes since Cracksman (2017 and 2018) but is confident his pride and joy will not give up his title without a fight, particularly if conditions are in his favour.

“It looks a blooming strong Champion if they all rock up, but we won’t run away from them,” said the Lambourn-based trainer.

“Hopefully Ascot will turn out proper soft ground like last year. Soft ground is right up his street and it was incredible how much that ground dried out the other day.

“Everyone kept saying to me it hadn’t stopped raining all week in Ireland, but it was quite a warmish, blowy day. I walked it at around 12.30pm and thought it was good to soft, but obviously the race was five hours later and it was probably just on the easier side of good by then.

“I’m not making excuses, but it would have been nice if it had been just a little bit softer.

“You need everything in your favour in those Group One races as they’re hard to win!”