Timeform Horses to Follow on the Flat in 2023: Greek Order

Greek Order (Harry & Roger Charlton)

Roger Charlton trained winners for the late Khalid Abdullah for 30 years, starting from 1990 when Charlton completed a Derby double at Epsom and Chantilly with the Abdullah colts Quest For Fame and Sanglamore in his first season with the licence at Beckhampton.

Things are a little different nowadays, with Charlton sharing that licence with son Harry from early last year, while following Abdullah’s death in early-2021 – “I owe him everything” said Charlton at the time – the Abdullah horses now race under the Juddmonte banner.

But the successful partnership between Beckhampton and Juddmonte lives on as shown at Royal Ascot last year when the Charltons had their first joint-winner at the meeting with Thesis in the Britannia Stakes.

It’s not out of the question that Greek Order could be a Royal Ascot type himself. After all, he’s by the same sire as Thesis, Kingman, and is a brother to another Royal Ascot winner, Sangarius, who struck in the Hampton Court Stakes in 2019.

Sangarius was a Listed winner at two for Sir Michael Stoute and thought worthy of contesting the Dewhurst Stakes, whereas Greek Order starts his three-year-old season still a maiden, though it shouldn’t take him long to shed that tag.

Greek Order was strongly fancied to make a winning debut in a novice at Salisbury in September, sent off the 6/4 favourite, but proved too green against a couple of more experienced rivals. Still, he shaped well in being beaten a length into third behind Secret Solace and Havana Blue without being given too hard a race.

The following month at Newmarket, Greek Order went closer in a similar event but still showed signs of inexperience, running green once hitting the front over a furlong out and then headed in the final 50 yards as he went down by a neck to Godolphin’s odds-on favourite Regal Honour.

Nonetheless, Greek Order shaped encouragingly again and, being a tall colt with scope for more progress at three, he seems sure to win races this year.

A very smart winner at up to a mile and a quarter, Sangarius is the pick of several winners among Greek Order’s siblings, while one of his half-sisters is the dam of last year’s Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere winner Belbek.

This is one of the finest Juddmonte families, with Greek Order having high-class filly Banks Hill, herself a Royal Ascot winner in the Coronation Stakes, as his grandam.

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