The Flat season proper has opened with an almighty shock and a cruel tragedy.
First City of Troy, the latest horse to be anointed by the incomparable Aidan O’Brien as the best he has ever trained, flopped like a wet sponge in the 2000 Guineas. Then with Charlie Appleby’s Godolphin team mopping up top races to demonstrate that their comparatively poor 2023 was merely a blip, their Hidden Law passed the post as an impressive three-lengths winner of the Chester Vase. As bookmakers’ fingers flicked laptop keys to instal the Dubawi colt as a new favourite for the Derby, a few yards further on he took a false step and shattered his right foreleg. Within minutes he was euthanised.
From our Twelve last summer, trainer David O’Meara expects more success for Pearle d’Or, who won twice
These animals are so powerful and yet so fragile and as so often it was John Gosden, one of racing’s proper grown-ups, who explained to TV viewers why it is almost impossible to save a horse’s life in such circumstances. It really is time he was given a knighthood. Lawyers get them as a matter of habit, political party donors buy them, ex-ministers get them as consolation prizes and any decent businessman who has done as much for their industry as John Gosden has done for racing should expect such recognition. Is it just racing’s association with betting which keeps denying its deserving figures such an accolade?
Talking of betting, our winter Twelve to Follow did us proud. Nine of them won races, with Dysart Enos, Kel Du Large and Tellherthename each scoring twice, as did Iberico Lord at 7-1 and 15-2. Victtorino came in at 4-1 and White Rhino at 3-1 while Helnwein waited for the last day of the season on better ground to score at 14-1. Total winnings to a £10 level stake were £257, bettering our profits of £147 the previous winter and £181 last summer. From our Twelve last summer, trainer David O’Meara expects more success for Pearle d’Or, who won for us twice. Charlie Hills continues to insist that his sprinter Rabaah has the potential of a class act and Sir Michael Stoute’s Passenger has already impressed this season at Chester.
As for this year, I always like to include one for the top-class races and it has to be Roger Varian’s King Of Steel, an imposing horse with real presence who won the King Edward VII Stakes and the Champion Stakes at Ascot last year. Class will be evident too I believe in the last sibling to Frankel we will see on the racecourse. Kikkuli, the Kingman colt whose mother, Mind (the dam he shared with his half brother Frankel), died giving birth to him, is trained by Roger Charlton and he made an impressive seasonal debut at Newmarket, beating Godolphin’s Creative Story.
Richard Hannon has a truly impressive team of horses this year, including the 2000 Guineas second and third Rosallion and Haatem. Richard has said that he likes Sam Hawkens too but from his team I am going with the Golden Horn colt Voyage who had Sam Hawkens behind him when winning over 1m 2f at Newbury at 28-1.
Ralph Beckett has already won the Oaks twice and has a special touch with fillies. His Forest Fairy advertised her claims at Chester and will do well but I am going instead with his Classical Song, who caught my eye at Sandown last backend. George Boughey’s Highclere filly Chic Colombine had a dreadful draw when contesting the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches at Longchamp on ground too firm for her last Sunday but should have her day. An impressive debutant at Newmarket over ten furlongs was William Haggas’s Sea Just In Time who delighted Tom Marquand when going clear from a decent field.
I always like to include a few sprinters as we get plenty of runs out of them. I start those with Mickley, who made an impressive seasonal debut at Southwell for advancing Northern trainer Ed Bethell. Then it is back to the prolific Richard Hannon for Dark Thirty who was third to Godolphin’s Noble Dynasty at Newmarket after rearing up in the stalls. In too goes Ed Walker’s English Oak who was second that day. I also include from a previous Twelve Michael Dods’s Azure Blue, who missed much of last season.
Two late entrants for the Twelve made their way into my notebook at Ascot only on Saturday. Talking to Kevin Philippart De Foy after his Too Bossy for Us had won the 1m 2f handicap in the hands of Benoit De La Sayette, I learned that he was delighted with the progress of what he called ‘a lovely moving horse’ for whom the penny had begun to drop on his previous run at Kempton.
The Golden Horn colt looks like a steady improver who will get further. Then there was the Dominic Ffrench Davis-trained Reposado. Before the five furlong for two-year-olds race Dominic told me that Reposado would have learned from his previous run at Newbury. So he had, going down by only a neck in a battle after trying to make it all. He’ll win a race or two.
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