Richard Hannon ready to lead charge for Champions Day with Barney Roy

• Royal Ascot winner lines up as third favourite for the Champion Stakes
• ‘He goes to to Ascot in great nick. He’s fresh, he’s a very exciting horse’

If there were any doubt about how much the souped-up Ascot version of Champions Day has come to mean to racing professionals, Richard Hannon killed it stone dead here by raising the memory of last year, when he didn’t have a runner on the card. “I went racing anyway and walked round like this with my head down for the whole day. I thought, I hope no one sees me here and asks me what I’m running.

“I basically just went for lunch and it was a little bit embarrassing. But it’s the way it should be; runners on that day should be very special and it should be about the top, top-class horses. If I didn’t have a runner, I’d still be there to watch the race, it will be fantastic. Even more fantastic if we win it.”

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2yrXLfF