O'Brien welcomes St James's Palace challenge with Henri Matisse

June 17, 2025

Aidan O’Brien is welcoming the challenge of the St James’s Palace with Henri Matisse in Tuesday’s feature race at Royal Ascot.

The Group 1 over a mile sees the English, Irish and French 2,000 Guineas winners go head-to-head as Ruling Court, Field Of Gold and Henri Matisse take to the stage at the Berkshire venue.

Field Of Gold is the odds-on favourite with the top betting sites in Ireland at 8/11, followed by Ruling Court at 3/1 and Henri Matisse at 7/2.

Just three Irish raiders will line up here, all from Ballydoyle including Officer and First Wave – one of which, most likely the latter is expected to set the pace for his better fancied stablemate.

Ryan Moore’s mount Henri Matisse began the season with a marginal victory on reappearance in the Group 3 Red Rocks Stakes at Leopardstown in March, striking late and running on strongly to get up by half a length from Commanche Brave.

That slender nature of success has become synonymous with the Wootton Bassett colt’s career in recent times, again eating up ground relentlessly inside the final two furlongs to land the Group 1 French 2,000 Guineas at Longchamp in May.

WATCH: Henri Matisse wins the French 2,000 Guineas at Longchamp

He only ever does just enough, a trait birthed at the end of his two-year-old career when beating Iron Man Cal by a neck in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar.

While his early juvenile season showed plenty of promise he showcased a tendency to wander out in front and rarely did a stroke when finding himself there, hanging and looking entirely out of sorts.

The key to Henri Matisse’s continued development, alongside maturation and relentless hard work on the Ballydoyle gallops, is delivering him as late as possible so he hits the lead with no room to spare and O’Brien is welcoming the task ahead.

The trainer told At The Races: “He only ever does enough in his races, he’s never going to win a race by a wide margin, so we don’t know where the ceiling is with him yet.

“He has a real ability to quicken in his races, so the round mile at Ascot should play to his strengths. It’s a very strong race, but we are ready to have a big crack at it with him.”

With the suspicion that Field Of Gold could be better over further – as well as the chance lightning fast ground could catch him out as it did in the English 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket – there is reason to believe Henri Matisse is the best pure miler in the field.

Ruling Court heads here after being diverted from Epsom where he was due to run in the Derby but withdrawn due to ground concerns, so that may ring alarm bells in itself as he was being trained for an entirely different race until ten days ago.

No one knows how to tactically manipulate a race better than O’Brien and there will be little surprise if Henri Matisse reigns supreme.