Arctic Cosmos can freeze rivals out in the Canadian International at Woodbine
John Gosden must have been delighted with ARCTIC COSMOS’ effort on his first start for over a year when runner-up to Quest For Peace in the Cumberland Lodge Stakes at Ascot on October 1, and the four-year-old is taken to exact revenge on that rival in the Pattison Canadian International at Woodbine on Sunday night.
The son of North Light was having his first outing since decisively landing the St Leger at Doncaster last September when he improved for the fitting of blinkers. Understandably, he was lit-up at Ascot ahead of the race, and under the circumstances ran a cracking race in defeat, going down by just two lengths to the race-fit Quest For Peace, in turn finishing clear of the remainder.
That outing will have taken the edge off and, providing that he handles the preliminaries with aplomb in Canada, I’m confident that he will be hard to beat. William Buick is likely to make plenty of use of him, so being drawn in stall two is a big help, and the 5-1 on offer with bet365 at the time of writing looks pretty generous to me,
Quest For Peace is not dismissed lightly, as he is progressive type. A winner of two of his four starts for Aidan O’Brien, he confirmed himself to be a colt going places when landing the Cumberland Lodge. However, he will need to take another step forward if he is to confirm the placings with Arctic Cosmos in this Grade 1 event.
O’Brien is represented by Treasure Beach, who landed the Secretariat Stakes at Arlington in August. The Galileo colt is vying for favouritism for the Canadian International, but I’m concerned that he’s had six tough races this season, and was well held in the Arc at Longchamp two weeks ago. I have feeling that this will be a race too many for Treasure Beach.
Another former O’Brien inmate, Joshua Tree, enters calculations. He landed this race last year, with Redwood, who renews rivalry, back in third. That duo boasts solid each-way claims, but I can’t help thinking that they will struggle to get to grips with Arctic Cosmos.