Ombudsman has done enough for this year

There will be no Japan Cup rematch with Ascot conqueror Calandagan for Ombudsman – with connections content to reflect fondly on a fine 2025, while also looking ahead to his return next season.

A trip to both the Breeders’ Cup and Tokyo at the end of November had been mooted earlier in the season by John and Thady Gosden for their Prince of Wales’s Stakes winner, who would go on to develop a rivalry with Aidan O’Brien’s newly-retired Delacroix in the second half of the season.

The son of Night Of Thunder – who has not been out of the first two in nine career starts to date – was denied late in the day when narrowly failing to add to his Royal Ascot triumph at Sandown in the Eclipse, but corrected the record when notching his second Group One of the year at York in the Juddmonte International Stakes.

The rubber match came in a red-hot Champion Stakes at Ascot, but ultimately it was Francis-Henri Graffard’s French raider who took home the spoils and connections of Ombudsman are minded not to ask any more questions of the Godolphin starlet this season.

Thady Gosden said: “Ombudsman ran a great race against a very good horse in Calandagan.

“There are not really the races for him, definitely not in this country, but abroad (as well).

“We discussed the Japan Cup earlier in the year, but he had a hard enough race on Saturday and hopefully there will be more improvement in him next year.

“He’s progressed enormously last year and again through this year and has always been a very talented colt. He’s by a sire who can do no wrong at the moment and he is rated 128 now which is pretty serious stuff.”

Gosden also confirmed there had been no decision made yet on the future of crack miler Field Of Gold after he paid the price for a lack of a recent run in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on the British Champions Day card.