A pair of lightly raced 3-year-olds face the prospect of heavy going in the Champion Stakes on Saturday at Ascot Racecourse. Calandagan, a French 3-year-old, couldn’t race two weekends ago in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe because he’s a gelding and instead squares off against England-based 3-year-old Economics in the Group 1, $1.69 million Champion, the last of four Group 1 races Saturday at Ascot and the last Group 1 of the European flat-racing season outside a couple of 2-year-old contests. As often happens on this card, dubbed British Champions Day, the two favorites and 10 others in the 1 1/4-mile Champion are in for a slog. So wet has the going gotten at Ascot that Saturday’s races have been switched from the round course, their scheduled location, to the inner course, which holds less water. That course on Thursday carried an official rating of soft, but more rain could fall before racing on Saturday. Trainer William Haggas asserted this week that soft ground won’t trouble Economics, who lost his lone start at age 2 and has gone 4 for 4 this season while being managed in a typically Haggasian conservative fashion. Economics won a maiden race in April at Newbury and on May 14 captured the Group 2 Dante at York by six lengths. The Dante serves as a Derby prep, but Haggas wanted no part of the Derby with a twice-started, immature colt, instead holding Economics out until the Prix Guillaume d’Ornano on Aug. 15 at Deauville, where Economics won by two lengths. Economics’s major target came one month later, the Group 1 Irish Champion Stakes, and Haggas hit a bull’s-eye, Economics toppling Auguste Rodin by a neck. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Though Economics thrives at 1 1/4 miles and clearly possesses elite talent, we’re left to take Haggas’s word regarding his suitability to course conditions. Economics finished fourth over heavy ground in his 2023 race and since has encountered nothing wetter than good-to-soft. Calandagan, meanwhile, copes with the widest range of conditions. In his most recent start, the Group 1 International on May 24 at York, he finished a strong second behind City of Troy racing over good-to-firm going. Similar ground produced a six-length Royal Ascot win in the King Edward VII Stakes, but Calandagan also sports encouraging performances over heavy and very soft turf. An Aga Khan homebred trained by Francis-Henri Graffard, Calandagan might hit his peak racing over 1 1/2 miles, but superior stamina could give him an edge at a testing 1 1/4 miles on Saturday. Also entered in the Champion is the Aidan O’Brien-trained Los Angeles, third in the Oct. 6 Arc and a potential runner three weeks from now in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. The one-mile Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, a Group 1 worth about $1.5 million, often draws a stronger, deeper field than the Champion, but not this year. Charyn, Europe’s best older-male miler in a down year for older-male milers, on Thursday held strong favoritism in a 13-runner group. On raw accomplishment the low price makes sense: Charyn has gone 4-2-0 from six starts this year, winning three Group 1 miles, two in England, one in France. His most recent race, however, produced one of his two defeats this season, a runner-up finish behind Tribalist on Sept. 8 in the Prix du Moulin de Longchamp, the only time this year that Charyn faced top-level competition on a course with much give in the ground. His competition includes Facteur Cheval, whose connections recently opted against a start in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in favor of the QE II. Owned by Team Valor Stables and Gary Barber, Facteur Cheval’s camp believes course conditions help his chances, and Facteur Cheval did manage a second-place finish in the 2023 QE II, albeit six lengths behind Big Rock, who ran the race of his life that day. The 14-runner Fillies and Mares Stakes over 1 1/2 miles has, somewhat oddly, the Juddmonte homebred 3-year-old Kalpana at the head of the betting markets. Kalpana never has started in a Group 1, much less won at the level, and comes to the Fillies and Mares following a Kempton Park all-weather track romp on Sept. 7, her first start since mid-July. At Newmarket in May she did finish second behind Friendly Soul, who won the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera two weekends ago. Also entered was Content, listed as a probable runner in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Kinross at age 7 might’ve lost a half-step, but he loves soft ground and still rates a decent chance to register his third win in the Group 1 Champions Sprint, a race in which he was second a year ago. And Kyprios, who handles all surfaces, should start the stakes action running his unbeaten streak to seven in the Group 2 Long Distance Cup. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.