Jamie Lynch looks towards day three of York's Ebor Festival where the Lonsdale Cup and the Nunthorpe are the features.
He's been around a long time, was once formidable, has gone through ups and downs in his career, but is staging a later-life resurgence in the Godolphin blue, proving himself a stayer. With their parallel profiles, it's perhaps no wonder Cavalryman and Kieren Fallon clicked upon first meeting at Goodwood last month. Points were proved by both horse and rider when winning the Goodwood Cup, and they come to the Lonsdale at 2.30 as the team to beat, but with a target on their back this time.
It's hard to see any of the trio that finished behind him at Goodwood - Angel Gabrial, Forgotten Voice and Estimate - reversing the form, but there are a couple of old foes that had the measure of Cavalryman in days gone by, namely Times Up and High Jinx who were first and second in this very race in 2012 (when Cavalryman was back in fourth), but most interesting against him is the Irish mare with hidden depths, Pale Mimosa.
Cavalryman has raced 36 times, compared to Pale Mimosa's nine, and only one of those has been over as far as two miles, when she finished strongly for fourth - ahead of, amongst others, Estimate, Times Up and High Jinx - in the Long Distance Cup on Champions' Day at Ascot last October, that her second start in Britain having won the 2012 Galtres Stakes at this meeting. Two races this year have got her along the runway, and today could be take off for Pale Mimosa, with the fact that she's relatively fresh blood in a race of mostly old stagers counting for something, too.
It may also be a case of out with the old and in with the equally old but kind of new in the feature Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes at 3.40. In this case, for 'old' see Sole Power, a regular in this race including a success at 100/1 back in 2010, and for 'equally old but kind of new' see Take Cover, the lightly-raced late-bloomer who's muscling in with the big boys this term. There are improvers, then there are fast improvers, and then there's Take Cover, who's both improving and fast: very fast.
He beat five of today's rivals with another show of brazen speed in winning the King George Stakes at Goodwood, following on from blitzing a listed field over the Nunthorpe course and distance. In an added twist, the two are drawn next to each other in 9 and 10, and in theory Take Cover is the perfect foil for the turbo-charged Sole Power, acting as a hare to catch, but it does prey on the mind that he's reportedly had an interrupted preparation. And it's hardly a two-horse race, with challengers old and young, from far and wide, including France and South Africa (last year's runner-up Shea Shea).
While it's easy to see any number of the assembled sprinters could win the Nunthorpe, I've got the City of York Stakes (3.05) down to three, namely Gabriel's Lad, Heaven's Guest and Absolutely So, with preference in that order. With the field size and likely strong pace, this listed event should play out like a top-end handicap, the scenario in which Gabrial's Lad excels, and if he's ever going to make the next-level breakthrough then this is the race.
The handicaps that bookend the card are betting battlefields, but we've got a couple to go to war with in the shape of Chancery in the first and Moohaarib in the last. Just 3 lb higher in the weights than when he won the race in 2013, Chancery looks to have been primed for a repeat bid, well worth backing each-way, while Moohaarib has the sort of progressive profile that makes him win-bet material.
