I love Eclipse Day at Sandown, the first occasion in the year when the classy three-year-olds start taking on their elders. Over the years it has given us some great contests and added lustre to the careers of some great horses. In 1986 Dancing Brave confirmed in the Sandown feature how unlucky he had been not to win the Derby. In 2009 Sea The Stars won the race in the fastest time for 40 years as he made it one of his six Group One victories in six months. In 2000 the ever-combative Giant’s Causeway got back up to win by a head under George Duffield after being passed by Pat Eddery on Kalanisi in one of the toughest and most enthralling finishes I have ever seen.
In soggy 2007 Ryan Moore, who until then had only had a single Group One success on his CV, stole the race on Notnowcato by cutting across to a strip of drier ground near the stands rail and staying a length and a half clear as the more fancied horses — Authorized and George Washington — fought it out on the far side.
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