Monday Musings: Almost, but not quite, done geegeez.co.uk

By this time next week it will all just about be done, writes Tony Stafford. The 2022 flat limps on for another three weeks after Saturday’s Champions Day at Ascot, but William Buick will have collected his first Champion Jockey trophy and Baaeed will probably have brought his career-ending tally to 11 from 11 – three behind Frankel – and be ready for a glittering career as a stallion.

If we thought the deaths in recent times of Prince Khalid Abdullah, Frankel’s owner-breeder, or Hamdan Al-Maktoum, who never lived to see his best-ever horse race, would mean a curtailment of two of the three giant Arab racing and breeding teams, evidence last week in Newmarket, both on the track and at the yearling sales, would have confounded that view.

Much was made of the first sales purchase by Hamdan’s daughter, Sheikha Hissa, of an expensive yearling; and then on Saturday, Chaldean, bought as a yearling by Prince Khalid’s successors for 550,000gns from Whitsbury Manor, won the Dewhurst Stakes. That made it four wins in five career starts and enough to stake his claim as champion juvenile of the year.

As Ryan Moore prepared to ride Coolmore’s Aesop’s Fables in that race he made little secret of the fact he expected the other Juddmonte contender, the home-bred Nostrum, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, to prevail.

Ryan would have been surprised had he been in the stands rather than on the back of the Aidan O’Brien runner on his way to the start to see the lack of confidence in Nostrum in the face of sustained support for Chaldean. The Andrew Balding horse was ridden by 51-year-old Frankie Dettori, able to take advantage of the Group 1 meeting exemption from on-going riding bans.

The Italian had been on board when Chaldean won the Group 2 Champagne at Doncaster in emphatic fashion last time out and he must have been worrying that he might not be fit to take the ride when he made an unscheduled flying dismount three furlongs from home in the opening Zetland Stakes: his Gosden-trained ride, Liftoff, clipped heels and fell. Rarely has there been a more appropriately named casualty.

Frankie said as he was still hot after his exertions in the big race he felt all right, but that those half-century old bones might be suffering a bit the following morning. Reprieved as he was, once he drove Chaldean to the front after a furlong, he was never going to let go, quickly seeing off Nostrum and Richard Kingscote before the last furlong. Here, Royal Scotsman proved a more resolute challenger, and the winning margin over the Jim Crowley-partnered and Paul and Oliver Cole trainee was just a head.

While the three days of Tattersalls Book 1 were never dull, it was still very much a private party between Godolphin and Coolmore, only relaxed to let in the next level of buyers when they condescended to leave the stage to the rest.

Suffice to say that the near 400 yearlings that found new owners over the piece, did so at an average of almost 300,000gns with plenty exceeding a million quid and one at £2.8 million. The total aggregate was £125 million. Tatts can count themselves satisfied at their commission on that first part; look forward to a less dramatic but also far from negligible Book 2, today to Wednesday, leaving Books 3 and 4 to mere mortals in the second half of the week.

Of course, then we have the December Sale, featuring top-class racing and breeding fillies and mares at the end of next month and into the first days of December. One of the busier young men at the sale last week was Ollie Sangster, son of Ben and Lucy and grandson of the late Robert.

He was seeking out potential owners and yearlings to join in his new venture training from one of the smaller yards at the spectacular Manton Estate, previously owned by his grandfather and, on his death, his sons. Now the property of Martyn Meade, who trains there in conjunction with his son Freddie at one end of the farm, while Brian Meehan continues having been on site for two decades, Ollie will have use of those wonderful downland gallops. As the backdrop to his entire life so far, no wonder he is excited at the prospect.

Ollie has done all sorts of jobs in the racing and breeding business considering his relative youth, but the last three years have brought plenty of excitement as he owns a minor share in the top-class filly Saffron Beach.

He shares the Jane Chapple-Hyam-trained four-year-old with his mother and James Wigan. It’s a real family affair as Jane is his step-aunt. Congratulating him on managing to get a piece of such a smart filly, he said, “I was in her from the start.”

The records show Saffron Beach changed hands as a foal for 55,000gns and since then she has won six of her 13 starts, two at Group 1 level and total earnings of £805,000. A daughter of the exciting young sire New Bay, she has been a late addition to the December sale and I reckon she is guaranteed to be one of the most desired lots on offer, almost certainly well into seven figures.

Ollie’s father Ben has, over the past few years, re-centred his Swettenham Stud breeding interests close to Manton House which remains his family home. He hopes that if Ollie’s training project takes off, he might have to find a new base for the mares and young stock.

A final note on the Newmarket Future Champions meeting which, apart from high-class two-year-old races, also included a cash-depleted Cesarewitch. Club Godolphin stepped in as sponsors otherwise what would it have been worth? As it was, £103,000 to the winner for such a major race was a disgrace, considering that was only one-third the amount the winner received four years previously.

There was yet another Irish winner, but this time not for Willie Mullins who had switched his better stayers to the Irish Cesarewitch the weekend before. Handicap ace and recently banned and reinstated Charles Byrnes was successful with the 147-rated hurdler Run For Oscar, who strolled home under David Egan more than three lengths to the good from the Hughie Morrison pair of Vino Victrix and star hurdler Not So Sleepy, who was adding a third place to two fourths in 2019 and 2020.

They provided a joint 72 grand to the Morrison owners. Second and third in 2018 would have brought 138k, almost twice as much. Only 21 horses, rather than a ballot-requiring 32, bothered to turn up, while the reinvigorated Irish Cesarewitch, worth seven times as much as last year, carried a similar payout to the winner as ours had been in 2018. Willie Mullins didn’t win it, that race going to Aidan and the three-year-old Waterville, who got up late to beat the Mullins pair Echoes in Rain and Lot Of Joy.

With the wonderful Kyprios apparently done for now, and Stradivarius finished – don’t worry Bjorn Neilsen isn’t looking for food banks yet, he sold a Frankel yearling last week for 2 million gns – Trueshan is left as the top candidate for the British Champions Long Distance Cup. At least, that was, until Aidan decided against running pre-race favourite Waterville at Newmarket and now has Ascot in mind for the improving young stayer.

While the jockeys’ title race finishes at Ascot, the trainers’ championship continues to the end of the year. But, the Vertem Futurity the following weekend at Doncaster apart, all the action for the big stables will be overseas.

Charlie Appleby’s remarkable winning spree in recent weeks has got him back a few quid in front of William Haggas. We can expect Baaeed to pick up the £737k for the Champion Stakes but if last year’s Derby winner can follow him home and Modern Games can pick up the £623k in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes – Inspriral will be tough of course – it might not be quite all over. It probably is though, in all consciousness!

- TS

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