Minding© Photo Healy Racing
Guineas and Oaks winner Minding will take on the boys in a field of 13 for a mouthwatering renewal of the QIPCO Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot on Champions Day.
The Galileo filly had three options, but the all-conquering Aidan O'Brien has decided to drop her back down to a mile, a distance over which she has not run since being beaten by Jet Setting in the Irish Guineas.
Hugo Palmer's 2000 Guineas and St James's Palace winner Galileo Gold, Irish Guineas hero Awtaad and Richard Fahey's improving Prix Jacques le Marois scorer Ribchester add incredible strength in depth.
Fahey said of the latter: "It seems disrespectful to the others I've trained but he'd be the classiest. He never blows, whatever you do with him. I've not had one like that before."
Stormy Antarctic, Adaay, Hathal, Breton Rock, Lightning Spear, the O'Brien-trained Hit It A Bomb, Jet Setting, Barchan and Mitchum Swagger complete the list.
