Throughout its long history, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes (G1) has showcased dozens of stars. The 1¼-mile test for 4-year-olds and up debuted in 1862 at Royal Ascot, and its winners in this century continued the grand tradition. Among the standouts who earned the trophy are Dubai Millennium (2000), Ouija Board (2006), and Auguste Rodin (2024).
Trainer John Gosden has won it six times, including last year with Ombudsman, who returns to defend his title. To repeat on Wednesday, he’ll have to defeat Daryz, last year’s hero of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (G1). They are the 6-5 co-favorites.
The low-key Gosden is one of the best horsemen that England ever produced, and at 75, he’s seen and done it all. He’s fired up about this “Win and You’re In” race that will award the winner a spot in the Breeders’ Cup Turf (G1) on Oct. 31 at Keeneland.
“It could be the race of the meeting,” Gosden said. “Daryz is coming over from France. That’s what the game’s about, top-quality horses meeting in these events.”
In the past 10 years, two Prince of Wales’s winners were first in the Turf, but not in the same year as their Ascot victory. Each was trained by Aidan O’Brien. Highland Reel won the 2016 Turf at Santa Anita and took the Prince of Wales’s in 2017, then ran third in the Turf at Del Mar. Auguste Rodin scored in the 2023 Turf at Santa Anita after skipping Ascot. The next year, he won the Prince of Wales’s before passing up the Turf in favor of the Japan Cup (G1), in which he ran eighth in his career finale.
Henri Graffard, France’s leading trainer, couldn’t be more confident in Daryz, who's 7-for-9 lifetime and a winner of three consecutive Group 1s by a total of 27 lengths. Last year, he was the world’s highest-rated 3-year-old. However, the worst race of his brilliant career came last August against Ombudsman, who beat sixth-place Daryz by 12 lengths in the Juddmonte International (G1) at York. Since then, Daryz has been on a roll.
“It will take a very good horse to beat Ombudsman, but my horse is a champion,” Graffard said. “Daryz has gained strength and maturity. He has a sharp, explosive turn of foot. He is truly exceptional.”
Like the trainers, the owners are top-of-the-line. Ombudsman belongs to Godolphin, an international horse racing and breeding superpower since the Nineties. Daryz is a homebred of the Aga Khan stud, which has been breeding and racing champions since the 1940s. Daryz was its eighth Arc winner.
The 5-year-old Ombudsman is 8-for-11 and comes in off back-to-back victories in the Dubai Turf (G1), by two lengths, at Meydan, and the Brigadier Gerard Stakes (G3), by a neck, at Sandown. Before last year’s Prince of Wales’s Stakes, he had never won a Group 1, which is why he went off at odds of 7-1. Despite encountering serious traffic problems in the midstretch, he found a seam late and drew off by two lengths under William Buick.
“He’s a better professional now,” said Gosden, who trains Ombudsman with his son Thady. “I’m really happy with him. He doesn’t waste any energy anymore. He’s like an old boxer. They get a bit wiser and learn how to move.”
Buick agrees.
“He will give you everything you ask of him,” he said. “At Sandown, he gave the rest of the field seven pounds, and that’s hard to do. He will improve for loftier assignments ahead.”
The morning line rates Ombudsman and Daryz as 6-5 co-favorites. It shapes up as a match race between the Godolphin blue silks and the Aga Khan’s green with red epaulets, but is there an opponent who could do what Ombudsman did last year to the 13-8 favorite Los Angeles?
Possible alternatives are Almaqam (6-1) and Minnie Hauk (10-1). Almaqam, another Godolphin colt, won the 1¼-mile Tattersalls Gold Cup (G1) last month in Ireland. Minnie Hauk, last year’s Arc runner-up in a photo finish, would look a lot more appealing if not for her fifth-place flop at 4-6 odds behind Almaqam in the Gold Cup.
She did win a Grade 2 for O’Brien in her season debut, but her sixth-place finish in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf also darkened her form. She was the 2-1 favorite over 12-1 Daryz in the Arc. You'll never see that price on him again.
O’Brien blamed the race shape for the Gold Cup loss. Minnie Hauk, a front-runner, was trapped behind a slow pace and never got involved.
“You can put a line completely through it,” he said. “The pace went completely out of the race, and [jockey] Ryan Moore ended up out the back on a mile-and-a-half filly against mile-and-a-quarter horses. They were walking, so she had no chance from there.
“What Minnie Hauk wants is an even, end-to-end gallop over a mile and a quarter.”
If you’re willing to forgive her last race, you’ll get a great price, but she’ll have to beat a terrific field.
Ed McNamara is an award-winning racing writer who has covered the sport since 1981 for The Bergen (N.J.) Record, Newsday, ESPN, Thorocap, and USRacing. He is the author of Cajun Racing: From the Bush Tracks to the Triple Crown and Racing Around the World, and a contributor to The Most Glorious Crown and The Racetracks of America. He has also written for racing publications in France and Italy.
