The Champions Day finale at Ascot gave us, as it should, the best race of the season. Thanks to weather patterns that for once provided not soggily risky October ground but perfect ‘good’ going, few quality horses ducked the meeting. In the Champion Stakes, arguably the three best ten-furlong horses in Europe – Delacroix from Ireland, Ombudsman from England and Calandagan from France – took each other on.
In the Eclipse, Aidan O’Brien’s Delacroix had chinned Ombudsman in the dying strides. Delacroix then collected the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown, with Ombudsman absent because his trainer John Gosden didn’t fancy ‘running against multiple entries from one stable on a track with a short straight’ (whose stable could he have had in mind?). At York, though, Ombudsman beat him soundly.
The excitable previews about this key decider at Ascot underplayed the fact that Calandagan was lining up with these two, on the course on which he had won the King George impressively in July, wearing down the brilliant filly Kalpana. And he had only just lost last year’s Champion Stakes (in the Aga Khan colours) in the dying strides.
In the event Calandagan proved himself Europe’s best over the ten furlongs. His trainer, Francis Graffard (successful two weeks before with Daryz in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in the same Aga Khan colours), described it rightly as ‘a beautiful race to watch’. Delacroix had traffic problems, and although Ombudsman, who perhaps began his effort from last place a shade too late, ran the last furlong as fast as Calandagan, there was never a doubt about the winner. The best of France had simply out-galloped his rivals.
It was only afterwards that we learned from M. Graffard, now firmly established at the top table, that in his first serious piece of work after a break, Calandagan had finished upsides Daryz with some ease, as if saying to him: ‘Look – this is how it’s done.’ In another key indicator, earlier on Champions Day the lovely Kalpana had dominated the fillies and mares race.
Damon Runyon had one of his characters declare: ‘The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong – but that’s the way to bet.’ I wonder what he would have made of a Champions Day season finale at Ascot which produced two winners at extraordinary prices. Ridden by Ascot specialist Jamie Spencer, Powerful Glory (last of five at Beverley in his previous race) took the Champions Sprint at a massive 200-1. Even Runyon wouldn’t have wanted to play poker with the trainer, Richard Fahey, who claimed that the Ascot championship had all along been the season’s target but after the ‘blip’ of a wind operation, they’d had trouble finding a race for his preparation.
I was less surprised by the 100-1 victory which followed in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes for the five-year-old Cicero’s Gift, trained by Charlie Hills and ridden by Jason Watson, who has had his ups and downs since becoming champion apprentice. He was in tears after what he saw as a breakthrough Group One victory. He shouldn’t worry: with plenty of rides for David O’Meara and Andrew Balding, no one doubts his talent.
Cicero’s Gift mattered to me too. Perhaps I can be allowed a small crowette, having recommended him to Spectator readers as one of our ‘Twelve to follow’ this season. I included him because I had noted his promise as a juvenile and then seen him run decently at Sandown behind Dancing Gemini. I remembered Charlie’s late father Barry telling me when I wrote his biography that horses are like flowers: ‘They bloom when they are ready.’ I reckoned that a wind operation and gelding might rejuvenate Cicero’s Gift. Of course I wasn’t certain that he would win at Ascot, but a second at Deauville in August and victory in a listed race at Sandown convinced me that Charlie’s patience could be paying off sufficiently for an each-way investment. He gave me my most profitable day on a racecourse ever.
Normally around this time I present the Twelve’s seasonal accounts. Ralph Beckett’s Seacruiser hasn’t made it to the track, and Owen Burrows’s Gethin, once talked of as a Derby candidate, has run just once in France. Karl Burke’s speedy Night Raider keeps leading top five furlong races to the 4.5 furlong point but is yet to score, as is Kind Of Blue, who won the Champions Day Sprint last year. More cheerfully, Jim Goldie’s American Affair, sadly sidelined with an injury since, gave us victories at 7-2 and 11-1. Amo Racing’s Mr Hampstead, now with his third trainer this season, won at 8-1, and Northern Ticker beat a field of 20 to win at 12-1. Between them, the Twelve have so far run in 42 races. With a £10 level stake on each, anybody who backed them all should be showing a profit of £990.
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