Strong French Challenge For Champion

Dual Group Three winner Prospect Park, trained by Carlos Laffon-Parias, and the Jean-Claude Rouget-trained Pinson, who has won four out of his five career starts and hacked up by six lengths in the Group Two Prix Guillaume d´Ornano at Deauville last time, have both been confirmed as intended runners in the #350,000 Emirates Airline Champion Stakes at Newmarket tomorrow week (Saturday, October 15).

Pinson will be supplemented for the race on Monday at a cost of #24,000 and is expected to arrive in Newmarket on Wednesday.

Laffon-Parias is also planning to run the smart two-year-old Gwenseb, a winner of three of her six starts this season, including a Group Three at Chantilly, in the #70,000 Rockfel Stakes (Group Two) on the same Champions´ Day card. Both Prospect Park and Gwenseb are owned by the Wertheimer Family.

Champions´ Day Card To Be Run On The Stands´ Side - Going Currently Good

Newmarket´s Clerk of the Course, Michael Prosser, revealed today that the stands´ side 20 metres of the Rowley Mile, which has so far only been raced on for the two-day Ascot Festival at the end of last month, will be kept back for Champions´ Day which, with six Group races - two Group Ones, two Group Twos and two Group Threes - plus the totesport Cesarewitch, is overall the highest class raceday in the British calendar.

The first two days of the October Meeting next Thursday and Friday will be run on the 30 metres of track on the far side, where the three-day Cambridgshire Meeting was run last week.

'The track we will use on Champions´ Day is almost fresh ground and it looks in tremendous shape,' said Prosser today. 'The far side was used during the Cambridgeshire Meeting and has been put back really well by the groundstaff.

'We are forecast a real mixture of dry days and wet periods over the next week. The total prediction for rainfall between now and next Saturday is about 10 millimetres, which compares with nearly 18 millimetres in just four days during Cambridgshire week. After a dry week this week, the ground is currently Good.'