On a day when Ascot’s Champions Day produced winners at 200/1 and 100/1 for home stables, two of Ireland’s biggest yards were busy elsewhere, writes Tony Stafford. It was no surprise when Aidan O’Brien had the opening five and then mercifully let someone else get on the scoresheet before making it six on the day at home to Leopardstown.
With multiple chances on the card it was not easy to determine which would be the better, particularly in the fifth, the Group 3 Killavullan Stakes. This went to 13/8 second best Dorset in the Derrick Smith side, having run for the first time in the Michael Tabor colors at 6/4 favorite Daytona, clear from the rest and to the delight of the two gentlemen involved at Ascot.
I doubt even they or their trainer could have predicted all six in advance. If they had, it would have been about a 1,150/1 six-timer, eclipsing the 200/1 longest ever winning start in Group 1 recorded by the Richard Fahey-trained Powerful Glory at Ascot. His victory in the Qipco Champion Sprint owed much to a masterclass from Jamie Spencer amid the cheers and disbelief on the Ascot straight, where his age-old skills never waver.
Two races later I did venture into the paddock, where many connections stayed to watch their race on the big screen, to watch the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Horse racing can involve emotions far removed from everyday life and I swear I have seen more than one highly emotional woman and at least half a dozen men cry unashamedly when Charlie Hills’ Cicero’s Gift returned to unsaddle.
It was a busy day for owners Rosehill Racing and even jockey Jason Watson wiped away a tear or two as he brought the misguided five-year-old back after taking out the big guns. Behind this, a revived The Lion In Winter led Alakazi and Docklands home, with the disappointing pair of Field Of Gold and Rosallion next.
No doubt emotion was the order of the day throughout the Hills family, just four months after Charlie’s father Barry, such a genius of a trainer, died at the age of 88. I had a few words with Barry’s widow and Charlie’s mother Penny earlier today. Then I remembered that about ten days ago I was driving along Fulham Palace Road in West London, past Charing Cross Hospital, where Barry was being treated for cancer, and I saw Penny on the way out after visiting him, as she did every day during his illness.
She looked great on Saturday and I’m sure she felt that her son, often underappreciated by ultra-critical people in racing – not always in the friendliest of arenas – had come a long way to silencing his critics. After all, hadn’t he also won the Grade 2 Woodford Stakes at Keeneland two weeks earlier with nine-year-old Khaadem, partnered by Frankie Dettori? That Fitri Hay sprinter had won the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee at Royal Ascot in both 2023 and last year. You don’t let top horses have a career for so long without having a real talent for it.
Frankie would no doubt have been keeping an eye on things at Ascot on the 29the anniversary of his unique achievement of seven races through the card. I saw Gary Wiltshire in Chelmsford on Thursday night and he’s still gushing about how he lost £2million becoming the last winner of that septet. I will also never forget that I had to write an extra chapter for the book Year in the life of Frankie Dettoriready to go as it was then.
Gary’s latest book about those days is selling regularly, and I hope Victor Thompson’s Eighty years in the Fast Lanealso published by Weatherbys, gets nice comments. I helped Victor and his partner Gina Coulson put it together, and the final piece of the puzzle came last week with Nick Luck’s stylish and heartwarming foreword. The publication should take place at the end of this month.
If I ever write my own book again, the title would have to be ‘I digress’ (!), because almost the most unlikely event of all those remarkable Saturday achievements took place in the US at the Far Hills Racecourse in New Jersey.
Gordon Elliott may have been bullied almost into submission in the top races by Willie Mullins over the years, but he certainly knows how to pick his spot. He sent a team of horses to the biggest day of American show jumping racing in terms of prestige and money on Saturday, winning five, including their Champion Hurdle and Grand National.
Jack Kennedy, thankfully recovered from his latest injury, rode four to make way for Danny Gilligan on Coutach in the £72k for the winner Champion Hurdle. The place of honor goes to the last of the quintet, Zanahiyr, an Aga Khan-bred son of Nathaniel, Enable’s father. Nathaniel, at 17, has made enough of a revival to earn £20,000 more at Newsells Park Stud. Graham Smith-Bernal, the owner of Newsells, was still mulling over another sale win (3.6 million gns) even though he was only second in the pile at Tattersalls Book 1 to a son of Frankel, sold of course to Amo Racing.
Zanahiyr collected £120,000 for his neck success over his compatriot, the Gavin Cromwell-trained Ballysax Hank. He is also a versatile type. He has won the Summer Plate at Market Rasen (a race won last year by Geegeez syndicate horse Sure Touch, who followed that up this week) and won a 1m6f flat race on home turf before his trip to New Jersey.
Cromwell had fulfilled a long ambition when he sent Stumptown, a regular in good handicap chases, out the weekend before to win the Velka Pardubicka over the fearsome obstacles in Pardubice, Czech Republic.
In total, Elliott’s five raised a total of £300,000. To his credit, he weathered the dark days and ban that followed that infamous photo with increasing energy and operational agility.
Judging from recent events, Elliott, Cromwell and Joseph O’Brien will become increasingly visible this winter as they go for the top British prizes, when the home defense, with a few exceptions, could struggle to resist them – and we will never forget the imperious Willie Mullins.
I hear whispers that the champion has already reserved the horses he plans to field in the five Grade 1 races that for years have been the fixtures of the opening day of Cheltenham’s Festival meeting in March next year. One of the stable’s most ardent followers complained about the realignment of the four-day programme, which, he says, dilutes the top races during the week. Maybe it’s a reaction from bookmakers who are tired of having their pants pulled down and smacked by Wearisome Willie every year!
I digressed and did it again. What a day. We saw a real middle distance champion in the French gelding Calandagan, too fast for the rest and ridden with great tactical insight by Mickael Barzalona, two weeks after his victory in the Arc de Triomphe over Daryz. An early test of that form was Kalpana’s easy repeat win in Saturday’s Champion Filly and Mare race, quickly clear down the straight and never tested in fending off a late thrust from Estrange. That striking gray was a blinder given the unsuitably fast ground.
John Gosden seemed more pleased to have ended the three-race battle with Delacroix (who finished fourth) on the right track, two-for-one, than worrying about Osbudsman’s defeat at the hands of the French raider who, like Daryz, is trained by Francis-Henri Graffard.
In that race I was surprised that Delacroix had not finished ahead of outsider Almaqam, trained by Ed Walker, especially as my vantage point was as close to the winning line as possible. Certainly, it’s better than from the Royal Box, fifty meters further down the straight!
Once again there was talk of Christophe Soumillon even after he won the Two-Year-Old Condition race at Mission Control for the Coolmore team and O’Brien. In the big match he was ahead of both Calandagan and William Buick when the Ombudsman turned for home, but was then swamped by a pincer move from behind, immediately losing his lovely throw. I doubt he would have caused the winner any trouble, but he could have been in another close battle with the Gosden horse if he had stayed out of trouble. Most of us thought he should have done better in the third place finish as well, but I’ve talked about him coming off in photos before.
But after chipping either way (forget which of my old friends said that!) on Karl Burke’s Holloway Boy in the closing Balmoral Handicap, the only handicap of the day, my eyes deceived me again. I knew Crown of Oaks had won, giving William Haggas another major handicap, but I was certain that Holloway Boy, in his first run since Meydan in April, was a close outright second.
Once again I was wrong, as the dead-heat announcement was a further surprise. Speaking of Holloway Boy, he, like fifth-ranked favorite Native Warrior, is trained by Karl Burke, a trainer who is moving inexorably up the ladder.
A reflection of this is the way in which he now also wins races abroad. Yesterday in the Group 2 Prix du Conseil de Paris at Longchamp he turned around Balmoral Handicap’s fortunes with Haggas, with Convergent winning his rival’s Dubai Honor by a neck.
Native Warrior was one of five Wathnan Racing runners on the day, from four different stables, all ridden by James Doyle. It’s a fantastic job for him, which can only get better as the owners and Richard Brown extend their tentacles.
There are still a few steps to go before Karl Burke reaches the top three of his peer group. After Saturday’s skirmishes, when O’Brien, Andrew Balding and the Gosdens each had one winner, it is status quo in the British trainers’ title race, with Aidan now assured of another win. If he wins the Futurity in Doncaster on Saturday he will receive more than £8 million in prize money.
Finally, after a day where I had more to report than a lack of space, I bumped into my old friend Graham Thorner, former trainer and Grand National-winning rider, on the way out. I suggested that Ascot remains unique in that it attracts huge crowds for all its dates and that I have never seen so many young people at a race meeting. He agreed. Whatever Ascot’s blueprint for success is, they must ensure they pass it on to less successful venues.
– TS
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