Rebel’s Romance skips Royal Ascot, targets Newmarket and Saratoga runs

Rebel’s Romance will skip a Royal Ascot title defense and instead return to Newmarket’s July Course on July 9, where Charlie Appleby will use the Group 2 Princess of Wales’s Stakes as the next checkpoint in the 8-year-old’s summer route. The gelding is set for his second start of 2026, and the 1 1/2-mile trip gives Appleby a clean test of whether the two-time Breeders’ Cup Turf winner still has the finishing power to keep carrying a transatlantic campaign.

The decision to pass the Hardwicke Stakes is as much about timing as ambition. Appleby has treated Rebel’s Romance like a horse whose value now lies in precision, not frequency, and the trainer has said the gelding’s age makes it important to choose the route that keeps him a live shot. Newmarket also carries added logic: it brings Rebel’s Romance back to the track where he first found turf success, and it keeps the horse on a measured path rather than asking him to peak twice in quick succession at Royal Ascot.

From there, the map points west. The next major target could be the Christophe Clement Turf Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 15, a Win and You’re In race for the Breeders’ Cup Turf and a 1 1/2-mile Grade 1 that now carries the name of the late Christophe Clement, who won the Saratoga route a record five times. If Rebel’s Romance makes the trip, it would be his second appearance at Saratoga and a chance to turn a difficult memory into another major autumn stepping-stone.

Saratoga was the scene of his 2023 loose-horse episode, when Richard Mullen was unseated, hospitalized and the gelding had to be caught after running loose. Godolphin said Rebel’s Romance was unharmed, and the horse was rerouted, but the episode underlined how much is riding on keeping him fresh and protected now that he is eight and still operating at the top of the division.

The résumé explains why the schedule matters. Rebel’s Romance won the Dubai City of Gold on Feb. 28, his 21st career victory, and Godolphin says he now has 21 wins from 31 starts, about $15.53 million in earnings and 16 Group-race wins. He already owns the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland and the 2024 running at Del Mar in 2:26.07, plus major scores in the Dubai Sheema Classic, the Preis von Europa, the Yorkshire Cup, the Hardwicke Stakes, the Grosser Preis von Berlin and the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes. Each stop this summer is being set up to decide whether another Breeders’ Cup run is still the destination that matters most.