The Lockinge lowdown: A guide to the big race and suggested bet

John Gosden versus Aidan O’Brien. It has become a familiar theme in recent years and the Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes at Newbury on Saturday will be no different, when the two titans of the training ranks will be represented by colts with the potential to be champion milers.

Gosden, now in tandem with his son, Thady, relies on the exciting Palace Pier in the first Group One race of the year in Britain open to older horses, while O’Brien will unleash Lope Y Fernandez. The pair have arrived here via contrasting paths and their belated first clash promises to be one to savour, not to mention much closer than the betting would indicate.

Palace Pier is a general 8-13 to enhance his reputation and grab the mile division by the scruff of its neck. Its crying out for a leader.

The Kingman colt fluffed his first opportunity to do so when a well-beaten third to The Revenant in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot in October. He was sent off 8-11 to add to his earlier Group One wins in the St James’s Palace Stakes and Jacques le Marois, but his effort flattened out after a promising mid-race move as Frankie Dettori, as usual, tried to smuggle him ahead from off the pace.

Palace Pier returned to his deflated connections with the first stain on his record and minus one of his shoes. Dettori spoke of “wheels spinning” and Gosden was swift to blame the soft ground. However, conditions had also been soft when his colt won in France on his previous start and had also been on the easy side when he won at the Royal Meeting.

Champions Day was more like Chastening Day for Gosden as Stradivarius, Mishriff and Lord North were all trounced, while Nazeef, Mehdaayih and Frankly Darling were also no more than bit players on a card which, beforehand, he looked likely to dominate.

O’Brien also suffered an unexpected blank on Britain’s richest raceday. It was an end-of-season 0-0 draw that got overlooked as racing’s golden couple, Hollie Doyle and Tom Marquand, shared four winners between them.

Gosden was asked about the general wellbeing of his team but rebuffed any notion that they were not 100 per cent and pointed to the gluey Berkshire soil as the source of the problem. The general consensus was that the ground at Ascot had been of the holding, gluey variety that can halt thoroughbreds in their tracks, rather than the wet, sloshy variety which can be easier to get through.

In any case, perhaps Palace Pier did not deserve his “banker” tag. He had impressed in winning both his starts at Sandown as a two-year-old but his connections felt the 2000 Guineas would be too much, too soon and so he was instead landing a handicap at Newcastle on the day Kameko was winning the first Classic of the season in a record time.

His apparent inclination to show little on the gallops might have also deceived them.

A fortnight later, he was manoeuvred into the fast lane and collared Pinatubo and Wichita in the closing stages of a rough renewal of the St James’s Palace. The placed horses had gone close in the Guineas and it was asking a lot of them to back their efforts up so soon, while there was also a suspicion that Pinatubo would have benefited from a more patient ride.

So, in a sense, it represented a good opportunity to strike at the highest level for Palace Pier. And he took it, helped by Dettori steering a wide route and missing some of the skirmishes.

Palace Pier was given two months off and freshened up for the Jacques le Marois. Again, he then swept through from off the pace for a narrow but decisive defeat of the admirable Alpine Star, who was completing the middle leg of three successive near-misses at the highest level. The pair pulled well clear, with such as Circus Maximus and Persian King clearly not at their best.

After another two-month break came his eclipse in the QEII and then a winter off to strengthen and mature.

Palace Pier resumed with an emphatic eight-length win in the bet365 Mile back at Sandown last month, although he was up against three inferior rivals and it’s debatable whether any gave their running. The ground was officially “good” but the times pointed to it being softer.

The Lockinge, Queen Anne and Sussex Stakes are natural next stepping stones. There's no doubt he's a classy customer but he's yet to put up an exceptional performance and standing in his way this weekend is a horse who himself has unfinished business over a mile in Lope Y Fernandez.

His reputation went before him as a two-year-old and after a taking winning debut win he went off 5-4 favourite for the Chesham in Royal Ascot. He beat all bar Pinatubo, who went on to confirm himself as one of the best juveniles there has been in the past 30 years.

In truth, much of the next year 16 months was a frustration for fans of Lope Y Fernandez.

He was a highly promising third in the Irish 2000 Guineas on his return last year – hinting at much more to come – but connections tried to manufacture him into a sprinter. He was placed in three Group One contests over six furlongs but, all the while, it looked like he was pining for a return to further.

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At least O’Brien resisted running him against Battaash in the Nunthorpe, which for a time he contemplated.

Belatedly, Lope Y Fernandez got a chance to show what he could do again over eight furlongs when contesting the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Keeneland in November. It seemed like something of an afterthought after a busy campaign bashing heads with the top speedsters but, granted better fortune in the run, he surely would have won instead of being beaten a length into third.

This year, sprinting has been ditched and Lope Y Fernandez is to be given the opportunity to express himself over further. Naturally, his training regime will be different and he seemed to relish the opportunity when easily winning a Listed prize over a mile on good to soft going at Leopardstown last month.

Similar ground seems likely on Saturday.

Ten others are in the Lockinge line-up – including the likeable Top Rank, who will be hard to keep out of the frame - but none appear to have the weapons of the big two, who are drawn near to each other in stalls 8 and 11 and should get a good tow into the race from such as Pogo and Century Dream.

It is not difficult to imagine Ryan Moore biding his time in mid-division on Lope Y Fernandez waiting for the right moment to hit the accelerator. It’s likely Dettori will be sitting in his slipstream, ready to follow him through and pounce.

Palace Pier is the right favourite but to my mind Lope Y Fernandez is underestimated at a general 13-2 to upstage him. I’d have them much closer in the betting, and so it will be the O’Brien runner who carries my cash in a race that could well shape the top mile races for the rest of the summer.