Eclipse Stakes day: horse racing from Sandown – live

Key events

Preamble

Good afternoon from Sandown Park on the south-western fringe of London, where the Eclipse Stakes, the first Group One clash of the generations, is due off at 3.35.

I’ve often heard it said – generally by marketing folk with a chunky contract to “reimagine” the sport – that the Flat racing season lacks “narrative”. I beg to differ. The first couple of months are when we sift the wheat from the chaff in the Classic generation, Royal Ascot is a sumptuous chapter all to itself, and then we turn the page again, with the Eclipse marking the point when we start to compare the generations.

There are years, admittedly, when the narrative is more compelling than others, and races like the Eclipse and the King George – at Ascot later this month – lose much of their lustre without a decent three-year-old in the field.

But that has not been an issue for the Eclipse in recent years, with a succession of top-class three-year-olds – from the Aidan O’Brien yard, for the most part – landing the spoils, and another potential leader of the Classic generation, Constitution River, will set off as the hot favourite this afternoon.

The four-year-old generation could well have its say too, though, as Saddadd and Gethin are both classy, improving colts, while another O’Brien-trained three-year-old, Hawk Mountain, was within a length of Constitution River in the French Derby last time and is also in there with a shout.

The big-race run-up includes a Group Three sprint at 1.50 to open the card, with the ever-popular Australian-trained mare, Asfoora, in the line-up against last year’s winner, Rumstar, a hyper-competitive one-mile handicap at 2.20 and, over at Newmarket, an unexpected diversion of the Lancashire Oaks – another race that pits three-year-olds against older horses – from its traditional home at Haydock, where the track’s racing surface is undergoing major repairs.

Tips for the ITV Racing card are here, pen-pics and video form for the big-race contenders will be along presently, and the blog will be live until the Eclipse winner is back in its stable and there hopefully some indication of where the next step in their story will take them.