The Ebor Festival is one of the highlights of the summer and it takes place at York next week. There’s an abundance of top-class racing to look forward to, including four Group 1s. Liam Bramall has had an ante-post look at some of the bigger races and picked out his three best bets ahead of the next week’s event. Take a look at our free tips page for daily content across British and Irish racing.
Merchant is progressing at a fast rate and successfully made the jump up to Group level at Goodwood last time out. He needed every yard of it to get the better of Wimbledon Hawkeye and the front were well clear of the rest. William Haggas’ colt got the better of the Irish Derby runner-up in a Royal Ascot before that and his profile suggests that this race is the perfect next step.
Delacroix has won three of his four starts so far this season, with his only defeat coming in the Derby. Aidan O’Brien’s three-year-old looked potentially special when winning a couple of Leopardstown Derby trials earlier on in the season, although things didn’t go to plan at Epsom. He roared back to form to win the Eclipse at Sandown last time and can confirm the form with Ombudsman here.
French Master came from nowhere to win the Copper Horse Handicap at Royal Ascot and he’s still lightly raced. The son of Frankel probably wasn’t quite ready for Group 1 racing at Goodwood last time and although winning a competitive race such as this off 108 is a tough task, he may well be up to it.
If you back any of our selections you can watch them live on the free Racing Post app or racingpost.com. Simply log in to one of your bookmaker accounts and click ‘Watch live’ on the racecards.