Camelot wins the 2011 Futurity at Doncaster

Futurity pathway as vital as it ever was as Doncaster race signals end of Group 1 racing in the UK for the year

By Ben Linfoot

Horse Racing

Tue October 21, 2025 · 1M ago

It's the final Group 1 of the UK Flat season on Saturday and our Ben Linfoot says the William Hill Futurity Stakes remains a crucial race for next season's Classic hopes.

And so it goes on. As one star three-year-old retires thoughts turn to next year’s Classic crop. The Flat season has reached its concluding chapter and this Saturday sees a significant line drawn in the sand with the running of Doncaster’s William Hill Futurity Stakes, the final Group 1 of the UK Flat season.

The brainchild of Timeform founder, Phil Bull, back in 1961, the race was formed with the intention of providing a platform for the more stoutly-bred two-year-olds, next year’s middle-distance horses if you will, and history tells us he didn’t half identify a gap in the calendar for such an important type of horse.

Run as the Timeform Gold Cup in its early incarnation, the race found an Oaks winner in its second year with Noblesse in 1962, an Irish Derby and St Leger winner with Ribocco in 1966 and then a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner with Vaguely Noble in 1967.

In the 1970s Classic winners like High Top and Green Dancer won what was now the Observer Gold Cup on their way to success at three, while the 1986 renewal saw Sir Henry Cecil’s Reference Point begin a notable trend of Derby winners graduating from winning the Doncaster Group 1.

Since then High Chapparal (2001), Motivator (2004), Authorized (2006), Camelot (2011) and Auguste Rodin (2022) have done the Doncaster-Derby double, making the Town Moor race unmissable viewing for Flat racing fans.

Auguste Rodin winning at Doncaster

Of course, it helps that European racing’s dominant force, Aidan O’Brien, targets the race on an annual basis with his Ballydoyle blue bloods, three of those aforementioned Doncaster-Derby winners coming from the all-conquering County Tipperary yard.

But the very fact that it’s a platform for Coolmore’s future middle-distance stars only serves to underline how important this top-level mile race for two-year-olds in South Yorkshire in October has become.

And with the Galileo dynasty now petering out, the Futurity has become an important foundation race for Coolmore’s stallions.

Their 2011 Futurity winner Camelot sired last year’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Bluestocking and could well be represented in Saturday’s Doncaster renewal with recent Zetland Stakes winner Pierre Bonnard, while we’ll get to see the first of 2022 winner Auguste Rodin’s progeny in a few years’ time.

This week saw the confirmation of Delacroix’s retirement, as well, a horse who might well become the most important stallion at Coolmore in the last decade or so and he too took in the Futurity Stakes during his development 12 months ago, for all that he lost out on first place by a nose.

His defeat to Hotazhell didn’t do him any harm, though, the only poor run in his career coming at Epsom in the Derby, his sire Dubawi’s hoodoo in that race continuing, before he excelled over 10 furlongs most notably in stunning victories in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown and the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.

He couldn’t go out with a bang as he found trouble in the run in an outstanding renewal of the QIPCO Champion Stakes at Ascot on Saturday, but there was no shame in that effort in fourth and it’s no surprise that Coolmore deemed him too important to risk racing as a four-year-old.

After all, he is the only son of the mighty racemare Tepin, who Coolmore shelled out $8,000,000 for in 2017. Four foals and six years later she died as a 12-year-old in 2023, so it’s all down to Delacroix to get recouping some of that outlay and he looks just about as safe a bet as you can get in the stallion stakes.

Mating the best with the best was another Phil Bull maxim, and, while that doesn’t always work out, Delacroix certainly helps the argument given his parentage. With his pedigree free of Sadler’s Wells, Galileo, Danehill and Green Desert he’s going to breed with all those choicely-bred mares at Coolmore and look at where he stands amongst Timeform’s list of Dubawi progeny.

That’s ahead of Night Of Thunder, New Bay and Too Darn Hot, three sons of Dubawi who are all excelling themselves at stud, particularly the first-named who has had a stellar season thanks to the exploits of Ombudsman, More Thunder, Zeus Olympios, Desert Flower and more.

As for Saturday’s renewal of the Futurity, the dominant trainer is, surprise surprise, Aidan O’Brien. The dominant stallion in the race is Frankel, who, quite remarkably, has only previously had one runner in the Futurity in the shape of Diego Velazquez who was sixth, for O’Brien, in 2023.

Clear favourite for the race is Benvenuto Cellini, trained by O’Brien, sired by Frankel, out of the two-time Grade 1 winner, Newspaperofrecord, who blitzed the 2018 Juvenile Fillies’ Turf field at the Breeders’ Cup – Coolmore and Peter Brant acquiring her after her racing career for an undisclosed sum. Sounds familiar.

He looked a colt of immense potential when running away with the Group 2 KPMG Champions Juvenile Stakes at Leopardstown last time, so his market pull looks completely understandable, but he’s not the only one with the promise of more to come.

There’s another Frankel in the Juddmonte colours from the Andrew Balding yard, Item. There’s another Frankel in the Prince Faisal colours from the John & Thady Gosden yard, Oxagon. O’Brien has more options by Frankel and Camelot and Wootton Bassett and St Mark’s Basilica. Hawk Mountain (Wootton Bassett) and the aforementioned Pierre Bonnard (Camelot) looking his best of the rest.

And so it goes on. Breed the best from the best and race them in the Futurity. The Doncaster launchpad has been a vital part of the two-year-old programme ever since its inception. 64 years later it looks as important as it ever did, a testament to the vision of the man who founded it.

Futurity pathway as vital as it ever was as Doncaster race signals end of Group 1 racing in the UK for the year

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