Racing: Opposition to Hawk Wing is washed away by rain

One by one, as if the whole story was crafted by Agatha Christie, the runners for the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown tomorrow are dropping off. We are now down to seven (with the each-way possibilities in the race ruined) and a further main suspect was due to be knocked on the head last night with the advent of the anticipated rain.

Michael Stoute said yesterday that No Excuse Needed would be missing from the big-race field if there were any more showers in the hours of darkness. As precipitation was almost a certainty, the Eclipse seems virtually certain to go ahead without Royal Ascot's Queen Anne Stakes winner. And then there were six.

In fact, it now looks a rather pale race, with the mystery reduced to the identity of the winning distance. It may be that the long-odds on favourite, Hawk Wing, could turn in his worst performance of the season and still win. That will not disturb the great burghers at Coolmore, who may well have been pleased by the colt's runner-up positions in two Classics but would now like to see the cold statistic of a Group One success with which to bash potential breeders.

Noverre will not give the Irish horse a run for his money as he is being held in readiness for a follow-up in the Sussex Stakes at Glorious Goodwood at the end of the month. Instead, riding alone flourishing the Godolphin standard, just as he performs in isolation on the Newmarket trial grounds, will be the unbeaten Equerry.

No horse has managed to get close to the front-running four-year-old on either the racecourse or the gallops. The one remaining conundrum in the contest seems the actual level to which he can perform.

"He's really an unknown horse for us," Frankie Dettori said yesterday. "He's very hard to train in a way because he always works on his own and he's very headstrong. He's a horse that's never really been with the big guns in the stable because he's a little bit quirky. He works on his own so we're not sure of his ability and we'll find out for sure on Saturday.

"We haven't really got an absolute 100 per cent line on him. What he's done so far he's done well. He's won his Group Threes and now he's stepping up into big company.

"We're taking a chance really. We've got to give 11lb to a Derby second and a very good horse who was also second in the Guineas. I can't see past Hawk Wing.

"He'll be a very hard horse to beat, but the more rain we get the more a test of stamina it will become. That will suit the older horses because they are a little bit stronger and can get through that ground."

A clearer picture will emerge this afternoon at Esher, when one horse who failed to cut the mustard at Ballydoyle contests the Listed Gala Stakes. It could even be that Hawkeye (2.15) was allowed to leave his yard at the end of last season to avoid confusion with the promising juvenile who was emerging through the ranks.

Certainly his form is nothing of which to be ashamed. The colt now with Michael Jarvis has competed in Group One races on his last five outings and, before that, he collected a Group Three event at the Curragh. That looks too much firepower for the rest of today's assembly.

In the opener there is a chance for Ellens Lad (next best 1.45), who is rather fortunate they use 0 for an unplaced run on the racecard. His performance in the Wokingham Stakes, in which Kieren Fallon tried to anticipate the stalls but did not anticipate that they would open so slowly that he would ram his mount into them, might more factually be represented as a 28.

Nevertheless, the old boy has still shown slivers of form this year and his handicap mark is now as low as it has been for ages.

In the showcase handicap there will be plenty of takers about one horse which Dettori knows plenty about, as King's Mill was a fluent winner over course and distance under the Italian last month. That should make a price for BROADWAY SCORE (nap 2.50), who was beaten but not disgraced in the Royal Hunt Cup, where he was going on at the finish. In addition, John Hills's colt looked as though 10 furlongs would suit earlier, when second to Kelburne in these environs.

ECLIPSE STAKES (Sandown, tomorrow): Coral: 1-2 Hawk Wing, 5-1 Equerry, 11-2 No Excuse Needed, 8-1 Indian Creek, 14-1 Bach, 25-1 Sholokhov, 50-1 Imperial Dancer.