Delacroix can make up for a poor Derby show

DELACROIX can reestablish himself as a topnotch performer with victory in a crackerjack clash of the generations in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown.

- By NICK GRANT

Smart last year, he set off this campaign looking the real deal, bagging two Derby trials and going off as favourite for the premier Classic at Epsom.

He had dismissed Lambourn in the first of those Leopardstown trial victories, but come the big day little went right, as he had lost his position somewhat before being hampered by Pride Of Arras.

That left him with a mountain to climb and while he ran on to finish ninth, it was a performance Aidan O’Brien felt needed a line putting through it.

Lambourn has since won the Irish equivalent, so whatever your view of Delacroix there is still plenty to recommend him based on that prior meeting and Ryan Moore rides in preference to French Derby-winning stablemate Cammille Pissarro.

The list of horses O’Brien has brought back from disappointing defeats to win at the highest level is a long one and it might be a strongly-run mile-and-a-quarter will very much be to Delacroix’s liking, not to mention the 10lb he gets from Ombudsman and Sosie.

Kerdos deserves to get his head in front again in decent company and the Coral Charge fits the bill. The Clive Cox-trained five-year-old won the Temple Stakes last year and has been thereabouts in the best sprints since then.

A case in point was his fifth in the King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot, beaten only two lengths having got loose before the start and done no favours in the race itself with the way the draw worked out.