September will see the Irish racing calendar reach one of its defining moments – the Irish Champion Stakes. Held every year at Leopardstown Racecourse, the Group 1 contest is widely regarded as one of Europe’s premier middle-distance flat races—and a critical stepping stone on the path to international racing glory.
First run in 1976 as the Joe McGrath Memorial Stakes, the race has since evolved into a global fixture, drawing elite horses, trainers, and jockeys from across Ireland, the UK, and beyond. Today, it sits at the heart of the Irish Champions Festival, a two-day celebration of top-class racing.
Run over one mile and two furlongs, the Irish Champion Stakes is open to three-year-olds and up and boasts a prize fund of €1 million, making it not only prestigious but lucrative. Yet it is the calibre of its past winners that truly defines its reputation.
From Dylan Thomas to Sea The Stars, Golden Horn to Magical, the roll of honour reads like a who’s who of turf royalty. Many have used the race as a launchpad to victories in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Champion Stakes, and the Breeders’ Cup Turf, with several going on to claim Horse of the Year titles in their respective nations.
With the fixture’s history in mind, let’s take a look at two thoroughbreds who are expected to challenge at Doncaster and add their name to the prestigious honour roll.
The below should help provide insights for fans of the turf as they look to make educated horse racing bets.
Ombudsman
Fresh off the back of a strong victory at the York Ebor Festival – in which he won the Juddmonte International Stakes by more than three lengths – the John and Thady Gosden-trained Ombudsman is expected to be one of the major contenders in the Irish Champion Stakes.
Ombudsman’s triumph at York wasn’t the only outing in which he impressed – with the four-year-old winning six of his eight career starts to date, including a victory at Royal Ascot’s Prince of Wales’s Stakes in June.
Additionally, he boasts distance form, with five of his wins coming in fixtures run over one mile and two furlongs. Can the colt build on his string of strong performances and claim his seventh career win? We will have to wait to find out.
Delacroix
The Aidan O’Brien-trained Delacroix is one of the best-backed in the ante-post market to reign supreme in the Irish Champion Stakes. He has had a fascinating season to date, which started in consistent fashion en route to a pair of Group 3 wins.
However, the colt had a setback in the Epsom Derby, as he failed to live up to the billing in his maiden Group 1 outing. The three-year-old went on to finish a disappointing ninth and was 16 lengths adrift of eventual winner Lambourn.
Despite his poor showing at Epsom, Delacroix would achieve redemption less than a month later, earning his first Group 1 honour at the Coral Eclipse at Sandown. In doing so, he sealed his credentials as a top three-year-old over middle distances.
It is also worth noting that Delacroix’s most recent outing came at the Juddmonte International Stakes – a race in which he finished second to the above-mentioned Ombudsman.
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