Outstanding Field For Newbury’s Lockinge Stakes

The Group 1 JLT Lockinge Stakes has attracted an outstanding list of entries for what could turn out to be one of the best renewals of the mile contest in recent years, with top class performers such as Canford Cliffs, Twice Over, Cape Blanco and Australian star So You Think, all amongst the 27 horses who might land the prize at Newbury on May 14, writes Elliot Slater.

Canford Cliffs will be the horse may people are waiting to see return to the fray this term, Richard Hannon’s outstanding three-year-old miler of last season set to attempt to build on some superb performances in 2010 which included successes in the Irish 2000 Guineas, the St James’s Palace Stakes, and the Sussex Stakes. His stable companion and fellow Group 1 winner from last term Dick Turpin may also be set to take his chance and give Hannon a potentially strong hand in this coveted event and the horse racing odds reflect this..

Aidan O’Brien could be set to unleash Australian sensation So You Think for the first time in Europe in the Locking Stakes, the multiple Group 1 winner being a horse equally capable at a wide variety of distances as he proved when following a series of wins between seven and ten furlongs with a tremendous effort under a big weight in finishing third to Americain in the two-mile Melbourne Cup last November.

O’Brien has also entered last season’s high-class Irish Derby and Irish Champion Stakes winner Cape Blanco, whilst Godolphin have entered Delegator, Mendip, Anna Salai and Shakespearean. With Henry Cecil’s dual Champion Stakes winner Twice Over also in the potential line-up along with Roger Charlton’s smart Cityscape and Mick Channon’s classy Music Show, this season’s Lockinge Stakes is already a race that has pundits earnestly debating who might come out on top.