Long Distance Cup Preview: Daiquiri Bay Can Make It Four In A Row

The Long Distance Cup opens the Group 1 action on Champions Day at Ascot and it looks a cracking staying race. Ten runners go to post at 1.30pm over a few yards short of two miles for £500,000, with the ground good.

Caballo De Mar heads the market at around 3/1, but I want to be on an unbeaten four-year-old who has been improving all season and is a big price to keep going.

The market has Caballo De Mar as the one to beat and he deserves to be there. George Scott's five-year-old is rated 117 and he battled it out with Scandinavia in the Prix du Cadran on Arc weekend and came out on top, with Oisin Murphy riding him again. I just think 3/1 is short enough in a ten-runner Group 1.

The St Leger winner Highwayman is 4/1 and he is the obvious danger. The three-year-old has won his last three starts for Joseph O'Brien and is rated 117, but he is stepping up in trip and taking on older horses. Gregory is 6/1 for the Gosdens. He has won his last two starts after missing most of last year, but his connections have said this will be a very different test to his recent run at Newmarket.

DAIQUIRI BAY is my selection at 14/1. Alan King's four-year-old has been a revelation this season. He has won all three of his starts, taking the Copper Horse Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Ebor at York, and he has had a break since to get him to peak condition for this. He is rated 110, which makes him the lowest-rated of the leading contenders, but I think that just shows how much he has progressed.

Of course this is a big step up in class. But he has won at Ascot already this season, he is bred for the trip and William Buick rides. He was as short as 10/1 earlier this week, and at 14/1 I think he is very much worth a bet.

Of the rest, Queenstown is 10/1 for Aidan O'Brien and Ryan Moore, while Amiloc and Opportunity are both 12/1. Amiloc won the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot last year, but his connections have said the trip is the question. Opportunity is stepping up in distance and Wathnan Racing's racing manager says it is unproven.

Mount Atlas is 20/1 for Andrew Balding, who thinks he is a place chance, but he has to prove he stays this far.

I am happy to take 14/1 about DAIQUIRI BAY to win. In a race where most of the main contenders have a question to answer over this trip, I think he is the value.