After the past two weeks of sales and racing at Newmarket, no wonder Charlie Appleby looked frazzled just after 4.15 p.m. on Saturday as he sat down for a welcome cup of tea, directly opposite my vantage point in a box in the grandstand at Ascot, writes Charlie Appleby.
I said, “You are champion trainer again!”, and the look of brief bewilderment on his face showed that until that point the significance of the outcome of the Qipco Champion Stakes clearly hadn’t properly sunk in.
“Really?”, he asked. I outlined how the £248,000 his Modern Games had earned for second in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes had significantly stretched his lead over close second but overwhelming title favourite, William Haggas. Bayside Boy, a 33-1 shot trained by Roger Varian had got the better of the Godolphin horse while Haggas watched on helpless as he did not have a representative in Europe’s mile championship.
That meant it was all down to the horse of a generation – or so we thought he was.
We had all dutifully turned up at Ascot expecting a coronation. The Queen Consort was there, but it was Baaeed who was supposed to be crowned King of the Turf after what was to be his 11th win from 11 career starts.
So little were his eight rivals considered as serious opposition that he was sent off the 4-1 on favourite. To appreciate the depth of that market confidence, he was entering Frankel territory. His admirers had already attached to him near-Frankel mystique, or even hysteria.
Frankel had been only a marginally shorter price when completing the last of his 14 unbeaten career wins in the same race ten years earlier. He was 11-2 on against five rivals, best of whom were the veteran French gelding Cirrus Des Aigles and his contemporary and old rival, Nathaniel. He beat them readily enough, but it was a performance far less in keeping with his nine prior, mostly spectacular, Group 1 victories.
The question had to be would Baaeed stroll through this final task before following his predecessor to stud? The previous weeks had shown Frankel as the most potent living stallion, comfortably heading for a sire championship with the victory of his daughter Alpinista in the Arc a performance fresh in the memory.
He had also completely dominated the recent Tattersall’s October Yearling Book 1 auction with a string of big-money sales up to the top price of 2.8 million guineas. Nobody in their right mind would believe they could send a mare to him next breeding season for the 2022 fee of £200,000. He’ll be in the Galileo league, probably at least double that figure, neatly spanning the generations from his recently deceased sire and having grown to full maturity and power in the breeding shed.
Her Majesty did the honours in the QE II, presenting Richard Ryan, racing manager of Teme Valley Racing, the prize for Bayside Boy’s unexpected win. Teme Valley were also in action in the Caulfield Cup in Sydney earlier in the day where their Numerian was a close fifth beaten barely a length.
A one-time Joseph O’Brien-trained gelding, Numerian was bred by Joseph’s mother, Anne-Marie O’Brien, and he will no doubt have more paydays in Australia. Last October, State Of Play, trained by Joseph, won the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley in the Teme Valley silks.
Ian Williams, who has had a fruitful connection with Richard Ryan, expressed surprise that his friend had not been able to be in both places at once. “He’ll work it out for next year, no doubt”, said Williams.
The QE II was a tasty if unpredictable aperitif to the main course. Ranged against the Haggas star was the 2021 Derby winner, Adayar, at 6-1, who was fifth in last year’s Champion after a fourth in the Arc, and now back with a bang fresh after that long absence with a smooth win in conditions class at Doncaster. Appleby vowed after that he wanted to take on Baaeed at Ascot. Then there was Sir Michael Stoute’s Bay Bridge, a 10-1 shot and Group-race winner earlier in the year at Sandown but held in his forays into top class since.
Add the Irish pair, Stone Age from Aidan O’Brien and 2021 Classic winner Mac Swiney from the Jim Bolger yard and you have a far from negligible task for the favourite. Baaeed’s form leading up to Ascot had been blemish-free, but whereas Frankel had spaced his 14 races over three racing seasons, the later-developing Baaeed raced only from May last year.
Haggas himself had two back-ups, My Prospero, who despite three wins in four this year and a close third, a neck behind Appleby’s ill-fated Coroebus in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Ascot, was a 22/1 shot. His third runner, Dubai Honour, had less obvious claims, starting 33-1.
If before racing the fear was that the ground would be a potential worry for many horses on the day, the times were very much in line with Chris Stickels’ good to soft, soft in places, assessment. Any attempt to assign Baaeed’s rather stale fourth place behind Bay Bridge, Adayar and stablemate My Prospero to the going therefore makes less sense than simply the cumulative effects of a long, tough season racing at the top level.
The money, expected to be sufficiently in Haggas’ favour via his three contenders, panned out thus. Bay Bridge got £737k for winning, Adayar £279k for second. All three Haggas runners picked up a cheque, but My Prospero’s £139k, Baaeed’s £69k and Dubai Honour’s £17,000 for sixth left them 53 grand short in that single race alone.
Baaed will now retire to stud at a time when Shadwell Farm is starting to resume activity in a buying mode at the sales after the initial selling-off of many hundreds of racing and breeding stock following Hamdan Al-Maktoum’s death. His daughter, Sheikha Hissa, has been a noted presence over here recently and it would have been a fitting send-off for her much-admired father if Baaeed had emulated the feat of Frankel and remained unbeaten.
Racing at the top level is very attritional. The old champ Stradivarius has gone off to stud and his Goodwood Cup conqueror Kyprios bypassed the Champion Long Distance Cup but Trueshan duly turned up and completed a unique hat-trick in the race for Alan King, the Trueshan Owners Group and Hollie Doyle.
The team had been almost inconsolable after the star gelding, in Alan King’s opinion still remembering his ordeal by fast ground and Kyprios at Goodwood, swerved away his chance late on in the Doncaster Cup, going under by a neck to Coltrane. That day, with the trains back to London all screwed by first world problems, I gave a lift to their best-known member, Andrew Gemmell, and his mate Tony Hunt, and all the way back to town Andrew was as despondent as I’ve known him.
The mood was rather different in the winner’s enclosure after Hollie conjured a thrilling rally from her tough, determined ally to avenge that defeat after Coltrane had looked likely to maintain the edge. This time the verdict was a head in the other direction. Two very brave stayers, but Alan King has done wonders to bring his horse back after that chastening experience on the Sussex Downs.
Anyway, to return to the point of the matter. At close of play on Saturday, Appleby had earnings of £5,959,450, a lead of £364,000 give or take a few quid, over Haggas’ £5,595,524. While the title runs to December 31, incongruously with the Jockeys’ title race already done on Saturday, nothing can change its destination.
One major UK flat race remains, next weekend’s Vertem Futurity at Doncaster. Charlie doesn’t think he’ll run anything there, while William doesn’t have an entry, so the £118k will likely go to Coolmore and Ballydoyle who always target the race with a 2,000 Guineas contender. They have plenty of possibles, but their stranglehold could change if Chaldean takes them on. The Dewhurst hero would be the one to beat if Andrew Balding goes for a race in which he has done very well.
In 2021 William Buick battled to the last day of the season before finding Oisin Murphy holding too many aces. This year, with his rival out of the way, it was a cakewalk. Oisin’s return in 2023 will be eagerly awaited. A revived Murphy, three times champion already, would make it a thrilling competition, but if that does not materialise, the prospect is that ever-improving Buick could be in for a long period of supremacy given the power of the Appleby team.
The quality of the trainers at the top of the racing industry in the UK is outstanding. Add Roger Varian to the first two this year and you have three upwardly-mobile Newmarket-based handlers who I’m sure could have succeeded in any other field, as of course could their Berkshire counterpart, Balding. The fact that they have such powerful teams suggests the quartet will be at the forefront of their profession for years to come.
- TS
