Ribchester and last year's 2000 Guineas winner Galileo Gold head 12 possibles for Saturday's Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes at Newbury.
The 2000 Guineas winner from 2016 Galileo Gold will be making his seasonal reappearance in Saturday's race at Newbury, which is sponsored by his owner.
This will be the four-year-old's first race since his fifth-place finish in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot last October, where he never looked like challenging the leader despite a decent run of form prior to that.
That fifth-place finish was only the second time Galielo Gold has finished outside the places and will be hoping to get the better of one horse in particular for his next outing.
Ribchester beat Galielo Gold in the Jacques Le Marois Group 1 race back in August, when Richard Fahey described the win as “the biggest win of my career” in a run that showed the best of his colt.
However, Galielo Gold was deemed as ‘too keen' in that race by many and Harry Herbert, racing manager for owners Al Shaqab Racing, saying: “He was just too free early and had no cover.
“Ideally it would have been nice to follow something, but he got very lit up and ran with the choke out. He was very relaxed before the race, but completely out of rhythm in front on a straight track, where there's nowhere to hide.”
Meanwhile, Ribchester has since had an outing at Meydan, finishing third in the Dubai Turf over nine furlongs and is likely to be joined by stablemate and probable pacemaker Toscanini.
Elsewhere, Aidan O'Brien has taken out Minding and Alice Springs in favour of Cougar Mountain, Martyn Meade's Aclaim steps up in class having won his last three starts at the end of 2016.
David Simcock's Lightning Spear, third to Minding in the QEII, could be joined by stablemate Breton Rock, with Dicton, Dutch Connection, Ennaadd and Mitchum Swagger making up the rest of the field.
