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THE culmination of the flat turf season has arrived with Champions Day, and although many of you will be looking forward to the main event — The Champion Stakes at 4.00 — my whole betting season was going to be based on the concluding Balmoral Handicap (4.30), but sadly the horse that I wanted to back has been balloted out!

Hey ho, so I will have to trudge to Ascot, not my favourite course for obvious reasons, and play mainly on the Group events on the card.

Hopefully that same horse will run before the end of the turf flat season and I can pass on that tip in due course. 

So on to the action at the Berkshire track and the big race itself first. It is indeed hard to see Baaeed being beaten especially as his first escapade at a mile-and-a-quarter was a career best, and I firmly feel that he would excel over 12 furlongs and I would readily have mastered the recent Arc field at Longchamp.

I think he is a superior horse to his main market rival Adayar, but the latter goes to post a much fresher horse and is still relatively unexposed at the trip.

Add to that argument the Godolphin player was given two awful rides at Longchamp and Ascot last year on ground he would have hated, and that all equates to him closing the gap considerably between the two horses who I feel are a mile ahead of their seven rivals.

So, the bet is either to back last year’s Derby winner at an each-way play fo 5/1 plus play for a place on finding the third home. I am going to do the latter.

The horse that could offer the best value for the final place could well be STONE AGE. At the beginning of the season he was right at the forefront of Aidan O’Brien’s choices for the Derby, especially after a clear cut win in the Derby Trial Stakes at Leopardstown.

His run at Epsom, though, was a big disappointment which to a major extent can be excused as he got himself worked up in a right old muck of a sweat — and so threw his race away before even arriving at the start.

In the race proper he raced way too freely as a presser and was done for fully half a mile from home, eventually finishing a tired 11 length sixth of 17.

In the circumstances I thought that was a creditable run. Only a month later he ran in the Belmont Derby but got going too late, finishing a late rallying and closing third, and that run was followed by a similarly one paced effort in the Grade One Saratoga Derby.

Off for another month he was simply used as a pacemaker for Luxembourg in the Irish Champion Stakes and was predictably beaten, but not disgraced, when fifth of the seven runners some two-and-three-quarter lengths behind his stable mate.

Being the yard’s only runner, I suspect he will be held up once again here, and be able to show his true colours on better ground.

I am under no illusions about the son of Galileo winning this feature event, but if given the correct right by Moore, I think he has solid claims of hitting the frame.

Elsewhere on the card there are, for a change, some really competitive renewals of the other Champion categories, none more so than the Champions Sprint at 2.00 over six furlongs.

I think that last year’s winner, Creative Force, is probably the right favourite, as he will have his optimum conditions for the first time this year. The added incentive to support him is that the Godolphin horse is having only his fourth start of the season and his claims are very solid.

However, on the official ratings, there is only four pounds between nine of the 18 entries here, so small margins could conceivably change the result here.

Kinross, undoubtedly the best seven-furlong horse in Europe, is right up there at the head of those ratings and is a fascinating runner down in trip, while Rohaan, winner of the Wokingham and Bengough Stakes over the course and distance, deserves his shot at Group One glory.

Had Creative Force been 5/1 or bigger he would have been my selection, but at a double figure price, PERFECT POWER looks too good to ignore.

I was perplexed that Richard Fahey ran him on fast ground in the July Cup at Newmarket after getting away with it once when landing the Commonwealth Cup over this course and distance. 

His subsequent never nearer three length seventh of 14 in the Maurice de Gheest is easily excused, as he had little chance of being involved as a hold-up horse in a moderately run contest.

Back on his happy hunting ground and with little to find on those official figures, I cannot understand why he is a double-figure price and that is well worth taking each-way.

The opening Stayers event at 1.25 could easily see last year’s winner, Trueshan, turned over again. Hindsight is a great thing, but maybe plenty of us haven’t properly assessed how much his immense weight carrying performance in the Northumberland Plate and a cracking third in ground too quick in the Goodwood Cup took out of him.

Despite the ground being in his favour here, I think he is well worth opposing and his Doncaster Cup conqueror, Coltrane, is the obvious alternative player.

However, he too has been to the racing well an awful lot this year and along with Quickthorn (had a terribly hard race on horrible ground in France) his season may well be done. So if you are looking for each-way value then let me put forward the lightly raced WATERVILLE, a last-gasp winner of the Irish Cesarewitch.

Yes, that run came off a mark of just 99, but the way he scythed through the pack having to alter course several times means that you could probably rate him well above his mark of 107.

Indeed he will need to be at least 10lbs better than that to merely be involved for a place yet alone win. However, if as I do, you too feel his main rivals could run below par for the reasons given above, then he could come right into the equation here.

Of the other races, I think EMILY DICKINSON will outrun her price in the Fillies and mares at 2.40, while the concluding and aforementioned Balmoral Handicap is worth an each-way stab with the admirably tough RHOSCOLYN at 4.40.