Charm Spirit for me.

Fastest here on my clock is Integral. I have her Ascot win 2lbs better than the slightly overrated (imo)Guineas form and with the 3lbs allowance she meets the 3yos at level weights. The run in France can be forgiven as she returned with bruised feet but maybe she was just feeling the effects of her previous two races anyway. She proved at Newmarket that she handles soft well and looking at the straight reading today I'm not expecting it to be markedly softer. Her latest win was only 2 weeks ago but as it was slowly run I wouldn't usually expect that kind of race to have taken too much out of her.

I'm not sure if Night of Thunder is still the same horse that won the Guineas, maybe these soft conditions can bring about a return to his best but I wouldn't bank on it, if at his best he can go close. I'm not convinced Charm Spirit has improved much since the Guineas and think it's more likely he's been taking advantage of slowly run races. If he wins so be it but there's no way I could back him. Basically I believe if Integral runs her race she wins and I'm having a good bet on her.

Well done Charm Spirit backers, obviously better than I'd credited him. Troubled run from Integral, although I'm not sure what was in the tank anyway.

I suppose the winner had an obvious chance but I thought Toormore was particularly unlucky. I don't know who makes the decisions but KF missed a chance to press for the lead drawn 11 he gave it up without a fight and then spent four furlongs strangeling his mount. He was crossed by NOT a furlong out and still nearly ran him down with hardly any use of the whip. May not have won but should have finished in front of NOT in any event.

I'm not too sure about that, Howellsy. When you look at the way NoT was finishing compared to the winner and compare his latter sectionals then it's not so clear cut who the better horse was. Of course it's all relative and if you do less early, like NoT, then you're more likely to be running faster late, but given that it was a slowly run early pace on soft ground leading to a relatively poor overall time then it's a possibilty if you switched jockeys you'd switch the result.

Thought NOT should have won that. Had a feeling before race Hughes would find trouble but always possible it would pan out that way. Charm Spirit is to be retired now.

See things as they are and not how you want them to be. The best horse on the day won and also didn`t have an untroubled passage.

It's not just a case of the troubled passage, which sometimes can't be helped, it's more about the tactics of holding a horse up in rear in soft ground in what was obviously panning out to be a slowly run race. It's known that it's more difficult to make up a lot of ground in soft going (although it's a lot easier when they go too fast, as in Madame Chiang's race). The more slowly run the race the more chance of finding trouble but most importantly the more slowly run the race the more difficult it is to give ground away early on.

NoT doesn't have to be ridden like that, he won his first two starts in soft ground tracking the leaders, he also wasn't right out at the back in the Guineas. I wouldn't be sure if he could've turned the form around in different circumstances but given the data there's certainly an argument that he might have and in my view the jockey didn't give him the best chance of winning.

I am Felt. My opinion.

Toormore beaten a half length by NOT with RH getting a whip ban. Something to look forward to for next year I think. Be intersting in the Lockinge if Hughsie switches back.

Messy race full-stop imo
All wanting to huddle over to the standside rail for better ground.
Very steady pace, then a 3f sprint to the line (French style racing) & winner .
Hold-up horses at a disadvantage the way things panned out.

Only ones happy with the result were the backers of the winner (punters wise) WD