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Godolphin's globetrotting legend Rebel's Romance chases historic King George crown

Khaleej Times

8 hours ago

Khaleej Times

Godolphin's globetrotting legend Rebel's Romance chases historic King George crown

The eyes of the global racing world will turn to Ascot on Saturday, July 26, as Rebel's Romance, the most prolific horse in Godolphin's storied history, lines up in the Group 1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, seeking a historic first British top-level victory to add to his glittering international résumé. The £1.5 million midsummer highlight at Ascot is not just the richest all-aged flat race in Britain; it is a battleground of champions, a race where legacies are written, and reputations either crowned or crushed. For Dubai-owned Rebel's Romance, trained by Charlie Appleby, the 2025 edition offers another chance to cement his name in the British record books. With 18 career wins, including 14 in Group company and a remarkable seven at the top level, Rebel's Romance has already secured his place in history as Godolphin's winningest horse of all time since the stable was created in 1993. His Group 1 triumphs stretch from North America to Germany, from Hong Kong to Dubai, where he stormed to victory in the 2023 Dubai Sheema Classic. And yet, one prize continues to elude him: a Group 1 victory on British soil. That could change on Saturday. Appleby Upbeat 'Rebel's Romance goes into this in great order,' said Appleby. 'There was plenty of strength in depth in this contest 12 months ago, when he ran a good race, and it looks a similarly strong renewal this time around. 'He is taking on younger opposition again, but, wherever he finishes, the others will know that they have had a race.' Indeed, Rebel's Romance ran an admirable third in last year's King George and returns to Ascot in flying form. Three wins from four starts this season include a commanding performance in the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes over the same course and distance at Royal Ascot in June, a clear signal of his readiness. This is a race that holds special resonance for Dubai racing fans. The King George has previously been won by legendary Godolphin runners like Swain (1997 & 1998), Daylami (1999), Doyen (2004), and Adayar (2021), while other Dubai-owned stars such as Postponed and Poet's Word have added their names to the honour roll. It all began in 1988 with Mtoto, the first Dubai-connected horse to capture the race. Rebel's Romance now carries the royal blue silks into that elite company. But the road to glory won't be easy. Rival Loom Among his key rivals is heavily fancied Calandagan, representing France, who returns to Ascot off a Group 1 breakthrough in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. Trained by Francis-Henri Graffard, the colt seeks to emulate stablemate Goliath, who won this race last year. Ireland's challenge is led by Jan Brueghel, the 2024 Coronation Cup winner and reigning St Leger champion. Only one horse, Conduit in 2009, has pulled off the rare St Leger–King George double in recent years. Trainer Aidan O'Brien strengthens his hand with Continuous, Lambourn, and Whirl - each a Group winner, each a potential spoiler. British hopes rest partly on Kalpana, the Juddmonte filly who impressed in last year's Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes, while rounding out the field is Green Impact, a lightly raced contender from Jessica Harrington's yard in Ireland. Saturday's King George is more than just a big-money clash. It's a mid-season summit of elite middle-distance talent colliding for supremacy. For Rebel's Romance, a Group 1 crown in Britain would not only be the ultimate homecoming triumph but a fitting jewel in an already glittering crown.

How The Fantastic Four: First Steps harnesses 1960s optimism for a 'divided era'

The National

a day ago

The National

How The Fantastic Four: First Steps harnesses 1960s optimism for a 'divided era'

As an actor, it can be hard to ground yourself in a world that's larger than life. Even more so if the character that you're playing is quite literally larger than life, too. 'How do I pull out a truthful performance when I'm a 14 billion-year-old cosmic vampire who's 750ft tall?' British actor Ralph Ineson wonders to The National. Ineson plays Galactus, the villain of Marvel's latest film, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. He, along with the Fantastic Four themselves, have been pillars of Marvel storytelling since the 1960s, but this marks their debut in the shared storytelling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But it isn't the first time we've seen the Fantastic Four and company on the big screen. Discounting the unreleased 1990s film adaptation, this is the fourth go-around, with each previous iteration failing to impress fans – probably partly because they strayed too far from the source material. First Steps takes key lessons from those missteps. Most importantly, it embraces almost everything about the original 1960s comic books – right down to the tone, '60s setting and even the goofiness of having a 750ft-tall cosmic vampire appearing on screen. 'We realised that you really have to embrace the weirdness of it all,' Vanessa Kirby, who plays Fantastic Four member Sue Storm, says. To play that with truth and sincerity, each of the lead actors took a different approach. Ineson concentrated on size. 'I would try to go to places where I could look down and have the perspective of a giant. And I'd focus a lot on my breath,' he explains. 'I'm lucky that I have a voice that vibrates through my body more than most people, so I would stand on top of a building, just breathing. 'He's a cosmic force – trying to put human emotions into him is just pointless. So I had to convince myself I was 750ft tall. You get to truth in the strangest ways, sometimes.' Pedro Pascal, who plays Fantastic Four member Reed Richards, thinks Ineson's voice may have been the key to the entire thing. 'Every time Ralph speaks, my body has a reaction,' Pascal says. For the Fantastic Four themselves – Pascal as Reed, Kirby as Sue, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm – the most important aspect to understanding their characters and their world was taking themselves back to the space-age optimism of the 1960s. Moss-Bachrach says: 'We watched a lot of footage of Apollo missions. And we also saw a lot of documentary footage from the '60s to place it, to contextualise it and get a hold of the perspective. 'We've come so far from that spirit of optimism and the great space race. And it was helpful to get a window into these missions that would embody the hopes and dreams and capture an entire nation. 'We're such a divided place these days. So I think those Apollo things in particular were very helpful to understanding how things once were.' To harness that optimism, director Matt Shakman studied the 1964 World's Fair in New York. 'They had a monorail and saucer-shaped buildings. I thought, this is what the people of the 1960s dreamt of what the future would look like, so let's make all of our New York look like this,' says Shakman. Pascal, meanwhile, first and foremost focused not on the setting, but on character. Reed Richards, after all, is not just a superhero, he's also the smartest man in the world. What weaknesses would such a man have? 'At his core, my authorship of Reed is that he's incredibly co-dependent. Without his family, he doesn't know how to function. He's lost to his own brain. His identity is related utterly to his family and his position in the family, and protecting them, and being protected by them,' Pascal explains. Julia Garner, who plays the cosmically powerful Shalla-Bal – the Silver Surfer and herald of Galactus – also had to focus on her character's weaknesses first and foremost. 'She's got quite a tragic back story,' says Garner. 'I had to focus on the loss in her life, really feeling it, and then focus on suppressing that loss because she had a job to do.' Making it all click, of course, was just a matter of chemistry – and that's not something that you can ever produce consciously, according to Moss-Bachrach. 'There's no boot camp for pheromones. Thankfully, in this case, we really got along like a house on fire,' he says. Quinn, on the other hand, found playing Johnny Storm a lot like playing himself. 'I had to balance his bravado with his comedic instinct and intelligence,' says Quinn. 'I have to do this a lot in my personal life – I'm always spinning those three big plates, and you never know which plate you're going to drop.' But dropping a plate, in director Shakman's view, is a feature, not a bug. 'These people have so much messiness, and that's what makes them so relatable.'

How Fantastic Four: The First Steps harnesses 1960s optimism for a 'divided era'

The National

a day ago

The National

How Fantastic Four: The First Steps harnesses 1960s optimism for a 'divided era'

As an actor, it can be hard to ground yourself in a world that's larger than life. Even more so if the character that you're playing is quite literally larger than life, too. 'How do I pull out a truthful performance when I'm a 14 billion-year-old cosmic vampire who's 750ft tall?' British actor Ralph Ineson wonders to The National. Ineson plays Galactus, the villain of Marvel's latest film, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. He, along with the Fantastic Four themselves, have been pillars of Marvel storytelling since the 1960s, but this marks their debut in the shared storytelling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But it isn't the first time we've seen the Fantastic Four and company on the big screen. Discounting the unreleased 1990s film adaptation, this is the fourth go-around, with each previous iteration failing to impress fans – probably partly because they strayed too far from the source material. First Steps takes key lessons from those missteps. Most importantly, it embraces almost everything about the original 1960s comic books – right down to the tone, '60s setting and even the goofiness of having a 750ft-tall cosmic vampire appearing on screen. 'We realised that you really have to embrace the weirdness of it all,' Vanessa Kirby, who plays Fantastic Four member Sue Storm, says. To play that with truth and sincerity, each of the lead actors took a different approach. Ineson concentrated on size. 'I would try to go to places where I could look down and have the perspective of a giant. And I'd focus a lot on my breath,' he explains. 'I'm lucky that I have a voice that vibrates through my body more than most people, so I would stand on top of a building, just breathing. 'He's a cosmic force – trying to put human emotions into him is just pointless. So I had to convince myself I was 750ft tall. You get to truth in the strangest ways, sometimes.' Pedro Pascal, who plays Fantastic Four member Reed Richards, thinks Ineson's voice may have been the key to the entire thing. 'Every time Ralph speaks, my body has a reaction,' Pascal says. For the Fantastic Four themselves – Pascal as Reed, Kirby as Sue, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm – the most important aspect to understanding their characters and their world was taking themselves back to the space-age optimism of the 1960s. Moss-Bachrach says: 'We watched a lot of footage of Apollo missions. And we also saw a lot of documentary footage from the '60s to place it, to contextualise it and get a hold of the perspective. 'We've come so far from that spirit of optimism and the great space race. And it was helpful to get a window into these missions that would embody the hopes and dreams and capture an entire nation. 'We're such a divided place these days. So I think those Apollo things in particular were very helpful to understanding how things once were.' To harness that optimism, director Matt Shakman studied the 1964 World's Fair in New York. 'They had a monorail and saucer-shaped buildings. I thought, this is what the people of the 1960s dreamt of what the future would look like, so let's make all of our New York look like this,' says Shakman. Pascal, meanwhile, first and foremost focused not on the setting, but on character. Reed Richards, after all, is not just a superhero, he's also the smartest man in the world. What weaknesses would such a man have? 'At his core, my authorship of Reed is that he's incredibly co-dependent. Without his family, he doesn't know how to function. He's lost to his own brain. His identity is related utterly to his family and his position in the family, and protecting them, and being protected by them,' Pascal explains. Julia Garner, who plays the cosmically powerful Shalla-Bal – the Silver Surfer and herald of Galactus – also had to focus on her character's weaknesses first and foremost. 'She's got quite a tragic back story,' says Garner. 'I had to focus on the loss in her life, really feeling it, and then focus on suppressing that loss because she had a job to do.' Making it all click, of course, was just a matter of chemistry – and that's not something that you can ever produce consciously, according to Moss-Bachrach. 'There's no boot camp for pheromones. Thankfully, in this case, we really got along like a house on fire,' he says. Quinn, on the other hand, found playing Johnny Storm a lot like playing himself. 'I had to balance his bravado with his comedic instinct and intelligence,' says Quinn. 'I have to do this a lot in my personal life – I'm always spinning those three big plates, and you never know which plate you're going to drop.' But dropping a plate, in director Shakman's view, is a feature, not a bug. 'These people have so much messiness, and that's what makes them so relatable.'

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Godolphin's globetrotting legend Rebel's Romance chases historic King George crown

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Godolphin's globetrotting legend Rebel's Romance chases historic King George crown

How The Fantastic Four: First Steps harnesses 1960s optimism for a 'divided era'

How Fantastic Four: The First Steps harnesses 1960s optimism for a 'divided era'

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