Return of the fantastic fight

Galileo's brilliance is about to be tested again

Apart from Fantastic Light, Galileo must overturn a sheaf of historical evidence in Clash of the Titans II, aka the Irish Champion Stakes, at Leopardstown on Saturday. Should the great unbeaten Aidan O'Brien-trained colt continue his majestic progress in his native Ireland's most prestigious all-aged contest, he will prove himself a King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner out of the ordinary. Of the 48 individual winners of Britain's showpiece, just 16 of the 40 who ran again scored next time out.

That list does not include exceptional horses like Nijinsky, Brigadier Gerard, Grundy, Shergar and Montjeu. Statistics such as these (and you can add the facts that, among King George winners, fewer than half ever won again and only two, Ribot, the second-best horse ever to race in Europe, and Lammtarra, made it through their careers without defeat) must be ammunition to the Godolphin camp as they prepare to pitch the King George runner-up Fantastic Light into a rematch that seems unavailing.

Nil desperandum, however, is the watchword at Moulton Paddocks. The last two King George winners to follow up with a victory, Swain and Daylami, did so in the Irish Champion Stakes and both carried the blue of Sheikh Mohammed's Dubai-based operation. Since running Galileo to two lengths at Ascot, Fantastic Light has thrived and, although those closest to him are realistic about the task in hand, they are still up for it. "There's no reason why we shouldn't take him on again," said the Godolphin racing manager Simon Crisford. "There are only so many races in the calendar for this quality of horse and the timing is right; we've used this race successfully in the past as a springboard to the international autumn programme."

Saturday's race will be over a mile and a quarter, two furlongs shorter than the King George and a distance over which the five-year-old Fantastic Light has excelled in the past. Further in his favour is that, as the weight-for-age differential between the generations narrows with the passing of the year, he will be 5lb better off with his three-year-old rival, though Crisford is not ascribing any particular significance to either point. "There is no scientifically profound reason why we should turn the tables," he said. "The distance and weight arguments were bandied about after Ascot, but we did not share them and so we can't say now they're going to make any difference.

"He beat us fair and square and would have done at any distance. But our horse is fresh, happy and well, a hard-nosed professional, and, if Galileo is going to take us again, he will have to be spot-on." Spice is added by the Godolphin squad's potentially formidable substitute, Sakhee. After last year's Derby runner-up returned to the top flight with a seven-length romp in the York International last month, he was rated higher than Galileo by the official handicappers. He will be left in Saturday's contest until the final declaration stage on Thursday and, should the ground ease markedly, will be pulled off the bench.

"Good ground is forecast, so I should think it is unlikely that he'll run," added Crisford, "but we have until Wednesday night to decide." For all the effortless brilliance Galileo displayed in his Derbys and the courage and sheer class with which he put the older generation to the sword in the King George, the pressure on him to prove his talent yet again is intensifying.

For him, at least running at Leopardstown is a case of been there, done that. Half of his six victories have come at the course, a left-handed oval overlooked by the Wicklow Hills just south of Dublin. He has won twice this year over Saturday's exact track.

But it is Saturday's Group 1 contest over the trip that is the must-have victory. His career is but the road to the real earner at Coolmore Stud, the Ballydoyle training operation's breeding arm, and in the climate of today's industry, where the tail of the global business of thoroughbred breeding is increasingly wagging the dog of the sport on the track, it is becoming almost an embarrassment for a horse to succeed at the elite level solely over Europe's traditional Classic distance of 12 furlongs.

The Irish Champion Stakes will be Galileo's farewell home game before his planned excursions back to Ascot for the mile crown, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, later in the month and the 10-furlong dirt title, and world domination, in the Breeders' Cup Classic in New York in October. The Ballydoyle team can be grateful that their arch-rivals in the turf wars are to take them on again, for nothing less than a consummate thrashing of such a top-notch yardstick as Fantastic Light will put the pride of all Ireland back on top of the pile.