Ascot updates from 12.55pm BST start
Balding v O’Brien can give Flat season fitting finale
Welcome to Ascot on Champions Day 2026, ahead of a seven-race card that stands at least a fair degree of comparison with the end-of-season jamborees in Paris two weeks ago, and in Keeneland later this month.
For that, we owe thanks to the long, dry summer that has extended into mid-October. That means in turn that this year’s card will be one of the few without the word “soft” somewhere in the going description (although it is also, as the Racing Post’s columnist Richard Forristal pointed out earlier this week, “a pity that it required the world to burn for the event to work”).