IT’S all about coronations today at Ascot. Baaeed for starters, a champion equinified, 10 for 10 and long odds-on to complete his perfect career today in the Qipco Champion Stakes, the race in which Frankel signed off on his perfect career 10 years ago.

You can’t really back him and you surely can’t bet against him. You can watch him though, appreciate him one last time.

And William Buick, who has been champion-in-waiting for months now, a worthy champion jockey, and Benoit De La Sayette, who sealed the apprentices’ championship on Thursday evening at Chelmsford when he punched Running Lion out to victory, which left him six clear of Harry Davies, who would need to do a Frankie Dettori today, but that looks unlikely given that he is only riding in the Balmoral Handicap.

We’ll have to wait for the champion trainer, we’ll have to wait until December to see who comes out on top in the protracted duel for the title, William Haggas or Charlie Appleby. They have both had superb seasons.

We may have a fair idea after today, but we will still have to wait for the official end in December, when we are in the thick of the National Hunt season, before we will know who was champion British flat trainer of 2022. Hopefully that situation will be rectified soon.

Inspiral isn’t quite as short for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes as Baaeed is for the Champion Stakes, but you can obviously understand why she is short.

Only blip

The only blip in the Cheveley Park Stud filly’s career is that defeat at the hands of Prosperous Voyage in the Falmouth Stakes, when she just didn’t perform up to her best.

She consigned that performance to the annals when she bounced back in the Prix Jacques le Marois last time, keeping on well to get home by a neck from Light Infantry.

She is popular though, a four-for-four juvenile campaign multiplied by a lamented absence until the Coronation Stakes will do that to you, and her popularity and her precocity is factored into her odds today. She may not have as much in hand over Modern Games as the market suggests.

She is rated 1lb inferior to the Godolphin colt for starters and, while she does receive the 3lb fillies’ allowance, there may not be much in it.

Charlie Appleby’s horse won the Tattersalls Somerville Stakes as a juvenile, not the May Hill or the Fillies’ Mile, and a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf doesn’t resonate here like the Dewhurst or the National Stakes does. Especially a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf that had all the pre-race drama that the 2021 renewal had.

This season, the Dubawi colt won the Poule d’Essai des Poulains (French 2000 Guineas), and he got to within two lengths of Baaeed in the Sussex Stakes, a race in which he had July Cup winner Alcohol Free back in third, and in which he beat Order Of Australia by a greater margin than the margin by which Inspiral beat him at Deauville.

Then, last time, he went to Canada and ran out an impressive winner of the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile.

Modern Games has run over seven furlongs and over 10 and a half furlongs (third in the Prix du Jockey Club), but his record over a mile reads 1121, the 2 in that Sussex Stakes against Baaeed.

This is his trip. He has rock-solid claims in a race in which three-year-olds do well, and he looks over-priced at 9/2.

Fillies and Mares Stakes

Stay Alert also looks over-priced in the Qipco Fillies and Mares Stakes earlier in the day. Hughie Morrison’s filly doesn’t have as impressive a CV as some of her rivals have, but she is a progressive and exciting filly who put up the best performance of her career in winning the Group 3 Legacy Cup Stakes at Newbury last month.

She does have two and a half lengths to find with last year’s winner Eshaada on their running behind Free Wind in the Lancashire Oaks at Haydock, but that was in early July, it looks like Stay Alert is a significantly improved filly since.

As well as that, she was keen through the early stages of the Haydock race, behind a sedate pace that Jim Crowley was allowed to set on Eshaada.

Eshaada was hampered in that race, and she is obviously a player again today, as is last year’s runner-up Albaflora, who went down by just a short-head last year but who will have to put two abject performances this season behind her.

Emily Upjohn obviously has a big chance, and it is significant that Rosscarbery is making the trip, while Sea La Rosa was just caught by Free Wind in that Lancashire Oaks, and has won all three races since, including the Group 1 Prix de Royallieu at ParisLongchamp two weeks ago.

But Stay Alert goes into the race on an upward curve. She did well to win at Newbury last time, she didn’t have a lot of racing room until deep inside the final furlong.

She showed an impressive turn of foot when she got out to catch and pass Fancy Man and beat him by a neck, with last year’s Wolferton Stakes winner Dubai Honour another neck back in third.

She will have to improve again if she is going to prevail today, but she has raced just six times in her life, she has the potential to progress again.

She goes well on easy ground, as did her full-sister Star Rock, who won the Gillies’ Fillies’ Stakes on soft ground, and her half-brother Stag Horn, who won the Grade 2 Leamington Hurdle last January on soft ground, and who has won twice at Pontefract on soft ground.

David Egan is one for one on the Fastnet Rock filly, and the youngster is riding out of his skin these days.

Stay Alert, 2.40 Ascot, 14/1

(generally), 1 point win

Modern Games, 3.20 Ascot, 9/2 (generally), 1 point win