Tag Archive for: Alpinista

Sir Mark Prescott has cherished memories of special York moments

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York Racecourse holds a special place in the affections of many within racing, including Sir Mark Prescott, who kickstarted his training career on the Knavesmire before returning to win some of the track’s biggest prizes.

The Heath House handler’s career was in its infancy when he sent Heave To up the A1 to contest the Ford Cortina Cup in 1971, but it was a victory which would become the springboard for one of the greatest training careers ever curated and by one of racing’s most decorated characters.

“York has been very good to me and in my first season I won with a horse called Heave To,” said Prescott.

Trainer Sir Mark Prescott has enjoyed a long career as a trainer
Trainer Sir Mark Prescott has enjoyed a long career as a trainer (John Walton/PA)

“It was the richest sprint handicap in Britain at the time and as it’s name implied, it was very, very richly endowed. It was for six-furlong three-year-old sprinters and him winning made a great difference to my first couple of years.

“It would be most memorable for me because it came when I needed it and he would go on to win the Victoria Cup, he really helped get me going.”

Many York patrons will also remember fondly – as does Prescott himself – the gamble landed with Graham Rock’s Pasternak in the race formally known as the Magnet Cup and now the John Smith’s, leg one of an audacious double which would be completed in the autumn when scooping the Cambridgeshire.

However, York’s most prestigious handicap of them all and the centrepiece of the Ebor Festival would enter Prescott’s grasp in 1994 when Hasten To Add finally relieved his handler of the heartache of some previous crushing defeats.

“Before York everybody thought he had won the Northumberland Plate except a very wise old punter who was there,” reminisced Prescott on his agonising reversal prior to the Ebor at Newcastle.

“I thought he had won, television, everyone thought he had won.

“Yet as I pranced down to meet him convinced of what a wonderful trainer I was, this old punter who had been in the police force came up to me and said ‘I have reason to believe that you may not have won’ which was such a lovely phrase and way of disappointing me and of course he was right.

“He had been second in the Duke of Edinburgh and second in the Northumberland Plate and he’d also been fourth beaten at the shortest price ever in the Cesarewitch, so York was a great day and came at the right time, it was good to win the race and get it ticked off.”

For all the handicaps landed and plots successfully accomplished, Prescott has always been more than just a one-trick pony and over the years he has returned to the Knavesmire with the cream of the Heath House crop to take home some of the Ebor Festival’s most prestigious events.

Pivotal gave long-time Prescott owners Cheveley Park Stud one of their greatest days when battling to a narrow Nunthorpe Stakes victory in 1996, but an even more dramatic finish to York’s sprint showcase came eight years ago when Marsha provided the veteran trainer one of his most memorable triumphs of recent times.

Marsha (left) narrowly wins Nunthorpe
Marsha (left) narrowly wins Nunthorpe (Simon Cooper/PA)

With Marsha going head-to-head with American hotpot Lady Aurelia in the closing stages, the race is remembered by many for Frankie Dettori’s steadfast confidence as the pair of courageous mares flashed past the winning line in unison.

Watching from afar, Prescott was one of those to be initially convinced by the mercurial Italian’s bravado at the finish, but gasps would soon ring out around the racecourse as the judge delivered the verdict in Marsha’s favour, with the victory proving a catalyst for a record 6,000,000 guineas fee at the sales later that year.

“She won a nose when no one thought she had got it, including poor Mr Dettori,” explained Prescott.

“I was looking at yearlings at Miss (Kirsten) Rausing’s in Ireland at the time so I wasn’t there and I was watching on television and thought what a shame she got beat. I went straight back to what I was doing, so I certainly didn’t read it right.

“Richard Hoiles, the commentator, was the only person who got it right, he said something like ‘Frankie thinks he has won it, but I’m not sure he is right’ – it was his great day as well.

“Everyone you would meet in the street said they owned a bit of Marsha and when she sold for the record price, she secured the future of the Elite Racing Club and their breeding operation forever.”

York may have been the defining moment of Marsha’s career, but for one of Prescott’s greatest alumni, the Knavesmire proved just a stopping point on the road to greater things when Alpinista set up her historic Prix de l’Arc de Triomph bid with victory in the Yorkshire Oaks.

Exceptional on her travels, but still in the eyes of many swimming under the radar when making the trip to Yorkshire somewhat under duress in August 2022, she headed home with a fifth straight Group One to her name and ParisLongchamp glory within reach.

Alpinista in action in the Yorkshire Oaks
Alpinista in action in the Yorkshire Oaks (Mike Egerton/PA)

“She had been doing a lot of her Group One winning abroad and the Arc was the aim. I had it in mind that we had beaten all the French fillies before in the previous Group One so we would go for the Prix Vermeille where you knew you could beat them,” explained Prescott on his initial reluctance to head to York.

“However, Miss Rausing said she would like it to be York as Alpinista had never won a Group One in England. If it was left to me she would have gone to the Vermeille, but as it turned out Miss Rausing was right.

“She became favourite for the Arc almost straight away which was when the worries started! From then on it all began to get tense.

“She was always under the radar and she won all those Group Ones in succession yet there wasn’t any real pressure on us until after York and building up to the Arc.

“I had no one ringing up asking for quotes on how she was doing or anything and she had won five Group Ones! But then all of a sudden the phone did start ringing, quite regularly as well!”

Monday Musings: Sir Mark’s Arc

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It was good enough to chat to Sir Mark Prescott and Kirsten Rausing in the sunshine of York before and after Alpinista’s fifth consecutive Group 1 success back in the summer, when she beat the gallant Oaks winner, Tuesday, in the Yorkshire Oaks, writes Tony Stafford. Yesterday I contentedly sat at home watching her battling performance in holding off a series of strong challengers up the last 200 metres to collect the £2.4 million first prize in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

The press and media were queueing up again, on an awful Parisian autumn afternoon to catch the now emotional Sir Mark – yes, he does sometimes let that relaxed urbane countenance slip! This tender side, in full view if not quite revealing actual tears, followed the victory of the same grey five-year-old mare, as she equalled a record that had stood from 11 years before the popular Baronet was born.

It was in 1937 that Corrida had been the last of her age and sex to win a race that then was only 17 years into its history.  Now the Arc is rightly acknowledged as Europe’s championship race. Sir Mark, a trainer for 52 years, plotted Alpinista’s path to greatness with the same patience that for half a century he has set up maiden three-year-olds to win strings of races as they improve and learn on the job, starting low and frequently ending high.

In her case, Alpinista didn’t start low at all, winning on her first juvenile start at Epsom’s August meeting. That alone should have told us she was different. Quickly up to stakes company, although finishing only sixth in a Goodwood Group 3 and then filling fourth in a Listed race at Longchamp, her first of many overseas sorties, on her final juvenile start.

Sir Mark gave her a reappearance on July 20, 2020, no doubt because Covid had not only interrupted the early part of that season for everyone on the racecourse but inevitably delayed all the time-honoured training regime he had made second nature over the decades.

But having finished fourth in that Listed race, this time at Vichy, she made up for lost time with a victory at the same level at Salisbury before outperforming her 33-1 odds when second to the Oaks winner, Love, in the Yorkshire Oaks.

From then, there has only been one more defeat, next time in the Group 3 Princess Royal Stakes behind Antonia De Vega at Newmarket, her final three-year-old start.

Thereafter, Sir Mark has produced a two-season, eight-race unbeaten sequence that could have been modelled on some of his more celebrated handicap coups, except that the last six of the eight have been at Group 1 level.

Last year involved a late summer/autumn German Group 1 hat-trick starting with a defeat of future 2021 Arc winner Torquator Tasso in Hoppegarten, a race of which Prescott modestly said her rival was “unlucky in running”. There was no hard luck story yesterday, though, as Torquator Tasso was brought with a perfect run down the outside by Frankie Dettori, but Luke Morris and his grey co-conspiratress were never contemplating defeat.

Afterwards, Prescott said that Morris had been with him for 12 years, a span that probably leaves him at least as long to go to match George Duffield. There can be few occupations anywhere in this uncertain world with the career security of Heath House’s stable jockey. Or indeed as the quiet assistant trainer William Butler might ruefully opine, “Nor assistant to Sir Mark!”

That self-effacing gentleman at least is not threatened in his post, but it reminds me of an exchange at the Daily Telegraph when a colleague, anxious to know what would happen when his department boss – he was the deputy - was leaving in the coming weeks. The Sports Editor, said, “Don’t worry old boy, your present position is assured!”

It embarrasses me (a little) to say he took the hint and quickly left and, a few short months later, I was appointed Racing Editor since which time it’s all gone downhill!

Alpinista was one of six UK-trained winners on the two-day Longchamp card with three on the opening day, added to by another three yesterday. That tally does not include Aidan O’Brien’s Kyprios, who, I must say, put up the best performance I have ever seen from a flat-race stayer.

In the two-and-half mile Prix Du Cadran, the previous winner of the Gold Cup at Ascot, Goodwood Cup and Irish St Leger, a Galileo colt, cantered along for the first two miles of the journey, as first Quickthorn (briefly, but alas with little conviction) and then Lismore set the pace.

By the turn in, the Coolmore runner had taken the lead totally untroubled and started to draw away inexorably. There was still more than a furlong to go when he began to find it all so boring and showed a liking for the fans on the stands rail, so in the manner of the 2014 2000 Guineas winner, Night of Thunder, he thought he would come and say “Bonjour” to the Turfistes that side.

It’s easy to overstate the amount of ground conceded by such a manoeuvre, but it caused Ryan Moore a degree of discomfort for a while. Not to worry, he still had a full 20 lengths to spare passing the post, and probably three or more gears that Ryan hadn’t troubled to utilise.

Having seen off now retired Stradivarius and Trueshan at Goodwood, Aidan and the boys will be aiming at shorter rather than keep to the stayers but, still only four, it will be tempting to call in at Royal Ascot for the next few Gold Cups. Yeats was great; Stradivarius was very good for a long time, but this is a late-in-career phenomenon to add to the Galileo legend.

Having watched Luxembourg struggle in the soft ground yesterday, I wonder if Aidan is already thinking “next year’s Arc” for a Classic winner, albeit the Irish St Leger. He is improving so quickly the problem will be just which demanding prizes they challenge for.

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It was good to have ITV cover the races up until the Arc and Sky Sports Racing the subsequent events, but when comparing what came up on those screens, with results as published in the Racing Post, there was generally a pattern to discern. Not in every case, but mostly, the punters watching on the box will have expected being paid out on those prices and will probably have been disappointed at what the bookies returned them.

The most blatant example on a day when Andre Fabre, three months my senior whereas Sir Mark is two years less a day younger than me, almost single-handedly kept the home fires burning with two Group 1 victories. His Jean-Luc Lagardere winner Belbek was 16-1 or thereabouts in both versions. Contrastingly, after his Place Du Carroussel finished strongly to deny Nashwa and Hollie Doyle in the Prix de l’Opera, Sky Sports Racing flashed up 66/1, but if you found her, the Post says she was a 41-1 chance.

Hollie got her revenge a little later when Richard Fahey’s The Platinum Queen became the first two-year-old filly to win the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp since the celebrated sprinter Sigy in 1978 after a fine performance by horse and rider. Her 9-4 on the box, was as low as 7-5 with the firms. Alpinista was only a shade shorter in the Post whereas Kinross and Frankie won the Foret at only 11/8. Don’t say the bookies never show mercy – they returned 17-10.

On Saturday, there was nothing to choose between 7-10 (Post) and 4-7 (SSR)about Kyprios while Anmaat’s 23-10 was better than the 15-8 from the broadcaster. There was a big disparity though in the 13-5 about William Haggas’ Sea La Rosa and the telly’s 7-2 in the Royallieu. Then again, with so many well-backed UK-trained winners, they must have been onto something of a hiding.

Now all the big players will come back to the UK, making the annual trek to the sales at Tattersalls in Newmarket to start inspecting the choice Book 1 offerings that will be going through the ring and will be their prime targets as they seek to re-stock.

I doubt Tatts will be worrying about their gas and electricity bills with 5%, the guineas rather than pounds, if you are too young to know, commission on every sale and the prospect of many millions of pounds, euro, dollars, yen and whatever else you care to mention, sure to change hands. It’s worth a watch, Tuesday to Thursday, to see exciting bidding, big-name owners and trainers and, like me, you can keep yourself warm at someone else’s expense.  Or else you can watch it at home online, but then you’ll be footing the bill!

- TS

Monday Musings: A York Debrief

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They came in their droves to York on Wednesday just to see the best horse in the world, writes Tony Stafford. They saw him and he delivered by six-and-a-half lengths from the horse who had won the richest horse race in the world – if not this year, last.

A lot had been invested in the event. Not just the £1 million prize fund of which £567k went to the winner, Baaeed if you weren’t sure. A decent chunk went to the second, Mishriff, to bring his money-haul to £11,677,544, four times as much as Baaeed’s. Third home Sir Busker also picked up a six-figure prize for Kennett Valley and William Knight.

It was the razzmatazz of the whole week, seemingly trying so hard to lighten the general mood of gloom surrounding the sport and country. It appeared to try to ape the Melbourne Cup with the jockey introductions and the like before Saturday’s Skybet Ebor, the half-million total fund of which makes it the richest handicap in Europe.

That of itself is not much of a distinction, as no other major racing administration has anywhere near the preponderance of handicaps, save Ireland of course.

Everyone got very excited when the William Haggas-trained four-year-old made it ten out of ten, approaching the flawless record of Frankel, who retired to stud after 14 unblemished runs. Although Frankel was also a four-year-old when he left Sir Henry Cecil’s care for Banstead Manor stud, he had won six races before June of his three-year-old season including the 2,000 Guineas. His shadow Baaeed had not even made his racecourse debut before June as a three-year-old.

Six races were crammed within 101 days in 2021 between June and October. Then Haggas gave him seven months to mature before another quartet, all at Group 1 level, in 95 days from May to August. The last three have been a mirror image of Frankel’s: Royal Ascot’s Queen Anne, Goodwood’s Sussex Stakes, and a first try beyond a mile in the 10½ furlong Juddmonte.

The incentive for the York feature for the Khaled Abdullah homebred was obvious as the late Saudi prince had sponsored the race for many years. This time, once the path had been set for Baaeed, the only argument going around was whether Haggas might try to persuade Sheikha Hissa, daughter of the late Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, to have a think about the Arc rather than end his career Frankel-like in the Champion Stakes later in October.

I had a lovely couple of days in York, securing a bed within walking distance of the track – although I did go by car – with Jim and Mary Cannon in their four-story abode in a quiet square near the Mount school, Alma Mater of Dame Judy Dench, so they told me.

Jim, a native of Carlisle, is a one-time Labour councillor in East London who moved with Mary to York nine or ten years ago and has had shares in loads of Wilf Storey horses for all that time and a little before. It’s like home from home and I can do my work, rifle the fridge and wait for him to rustle up something tasty for dinner.

That happened the first night, but on Wednesday I was in Delrio’s – known by all the racing crowd as “The Italian” and the only thing that beats it for its conviviality is the length of time it takes to turn orders into drink and especially food.

I had my back to the table immediately behind me, which among its ten squeezed-in bodies were several of the TV broadcasters. I’m pretty sure I did identify which of them pronounced: “It’s my mission to get him <Baaeed, no doubt> to the Arc”!

The way Baaeed finished off after coming from some way back offers every hope that he would stay the extra two furlongs, but would it make any difference to his appeal as a stallion? For all Sheikha Hissa and her family’s sporting and sensible policy of continuing her father’s work in a more streamlined manner, the fear that he might be beaten over a mile-and-a-half in the mud against the French (or Germans, or indeed Sir Mark Prescott’s Alpinista) should be incentive enough for the team to stay with the Champion Stakes.

Alpinista was the star of Thursday when she saw off a revived Tuesday – a little short of peak I was led to understand beforehand – in the Yorkshire Oaks. I always enjoy a chat with Sir Mark and, after he conducted interviews with every television station from the UK, Ireland and Dubai I finally got a word. His impeccable navy-blue pinstripe suit was set off with an immaculate tie, and it was only after studying him as I waited that I realised he had tucked in the tail part of it.

I said, “As you know I’m a year all but a day older than you, and I’m not too old to learn from you.” When I explained it was the tie issue that I noticed, he said he always does that. Then, after speaking to Richard Frisby, advisor to Kirsten Rausing, Alpinista’s owner-breeder, on the topic, he put me straight. “You learn that at prep school,” he revealed. I must have missed that!

Nobody missed the fact that Alpinista has won five Group 1 races including one defeat of Torquator Tasso, last year’s Arc winner. “We were lucky to beat him as he didn’t get a run,” said Sir Mark modestly.

So many amazing things happened at York. Like the 14-length win of Hughie Morrison’s ever-improving stayer, Quickthorn. Morrison and owner Lady Blyth had the option of a second shot at the Ebor, which he lost narrowly last year to Sonnyboyliston, who went on to win the Irish St Leger for Johnny Murtagh.

Instead, they took the bold step of taking on Stradivarius and Trueshan in the Lonsdale Stakes over two miles on the Friday. It was always possible that Trueshan may continue the Alan King policy of missing races when the ground was unsuitably fast and that was his eventual decision.

By that time, Stradivarius was already out with a bruised foot, so it was left according to the market as a match between Quickthorn, winner of the Group 3 Henry II Stakes at Sandown in May and a Group 2 in France last month, and Andrew Balding’s Coltrane.

Coltrane, winner of the Ascot Stakes under a big weight and then easily in a Listed over two miles at Sandown, proved best of the rest in the “finest stayers’ race ever run” when fourth in the Goodwood Cup behind Kyprios, Stradivarius and Trueshan at the Glorious meeting.

In the event, it was no contest. Tom Marquand took Quickthorn to the front, steadily building on an initial lead with consistent 12-second and change furlongs, and by the turn into the straight he was miles clear. Afterwards, Hughie told me, “I hadn’t realised how much he eased him.” The track record would have been his as well as a 20-length win at least.

I think the absent big two would have been fully stretched to have any more luck at staying with him than those that remained. He may well go the Irish St Leger route as that Group 1 win would look very nice on his CV, though that would very likely mean a shot at Kyprios.

Morrison is out of love with the Melbourne Cup nowadays after the controversy over conflicting veterinary conclusions by his own advisors and the local Flemington panel which ruled his Marmelo out of running in the 2019 edition on soundness grounds after he had finished runner-up to Charlie Appleby’s Cross Counter the year before.

One trainer perfectly happy at continuing his love affair with that race is Ian Williams and he almost carried off an Australian-style coup at York this week. It is commonplace for Australian trainers to run their horses in the days coming up to the big race, sometimes even three days before and over vastly shorter than the two miles of the Cup.

On Wednesday, Williams won the £51k to the winner two-mile handicap with Alfred Boucher by three lengths. That gave Alfred a 4lb penalty, enough to slot him in at the foot of the Ebor field. After much debate, he decided to run the six-year-old again, reasoning he would never be able to run for three hundred grand any time soon.

Backed down to 8-1 and benefiting from a fine ride by P J McDonald he was beaten just a short-head, as Williams asserted, “victim of a Frankie Dettori masterpiece.” He added, “Dettori went off fast and wide of the field, crossed him over to the front and then steadied the pace. He rode the socks off the rest of them, no criticism to P J.”

How Williams must have wished Dettori’s brief exile from the Gosdens over the Stradivarius Royal Ascot issue had been more permanent. He chose his best ride on their Trawlerman to deny what would have been one of the headlines of the week.

Talking of the Melbourne Cup, last year’s winner of that race, the seven-year-old mare Verry Elleegant, has pitched up in France in the care of Francis-Henri Graffard, presumably with the Arc as her main objective.

Frankie was recruited for yesterday’s run in Deauville and I wonder whether her Aussie owners were enamoured by this ride, sitting well out the back, asking for an effort turning for home, and then only plodding on at one pace. She finished last of seven and will need to have a form transformation if she is to add to her massive home reputation over in Europe. Connections were putting on a brave face and suggested a more suitable rehearsal will be the Prix Vermaille in three weeks' time.

- TS

Monday Musings: Sir Mark Dreaming of the Arc

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The first weekend in July was always considered the pivotal moment in the flat-race season, writes Tony Stafford. It was the time when the best of the present Classic crop could meet their elders in the time-honoured Coral-Eclipse Stakes. That is certainly one sponsorship name that always deserves linking with its race.

Receiving a 10lb weight-for-age concession from the older generation over ten furlongs, I believe the stars of the three-year-old crop ought to beat more mature rivals, as second-favourite Vadeni duly did. But I reckon that, for all the talent the Prix du Jockey Club winner exhibits, the select six-horse Eclipse on Saturday was not won by the best horse on the day, more of which later.

They say patience is a virtue. Every year the remarkable Sir Mark Prescott lines up his team in the spring and we in the game await the flurry of winners from June onwards. It didn’t happen this year and at start of play yesterday morning, Sir Mark had sent out only six winners from the 19 horses to run from his Heath House yard at the bottom of the Bury Side gallops in Newmarket.

That means another 44 of the 63 horses listed in the 2022 edition of my favourite publication, Horses In Training, have yet to see a racecourse unless Sir Mark has twisted some arms to enable his star mare to have a jog up the Rowley Mile or July Course.

The six to have appeared had collected £54k in win and place earnings, £24,000 of which was courtesy of the five-year-old Revolver’s second place in a valuable handicap at the Guineas meeting. Off the track from September 2020, Revolver has yet to appear again. He won his first six races of that season, all handicaps, starting from a mark of 57.

By the time he finally ran in his first race outside handicaps he had gone up by a full three stone and was not disgraced when fourth in the Doncaster Cup, his final outing before Newmarket this spring.

Yesterday, Sir Mark took what must be his favourite active racehorse across to Saint-Cloud for her seasonal reappearance and the grey Frankel five-year-old, Alpinista, was untroubled to pick up the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.

The £192k prize will have cheered the trainer as well as owner-breeder Kirsten Rausing, stable jockey Luke Morris, and the uncomplaining Heath House team who will belatedly see a welcome injection into the stable pool.

Alpinista was emulating the example of Revolver by winning six races in a row, in her case all from the start of last season. First it was a fillies’ Listed race at Goodwood; then she moved on to Haydock in the corresponding weekend to this a year ago and gained a first Group 2 victory in the Lancashire Oaks.

The following month Sir Mark embarked on a tour of Germany’s top racecourses and most important races available to older horses with her. First, at Hoppegarten in Berlin, she beat the subsequent Arc winner, Torquator Tasso, in easy fashion.

Next it was Cologne and finally Munich, the last three all at the top level, as was yesterday. Now they are getting closer to home, but it seems after her comfortable victory in Paris yesterday, she will be returning to that city for two Longchamp dates in the autumn, with the Prix Vermeille and then the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe firmly on her agenda.

If she does get safely through the Vermeille leg of her itinerary, she will be going into Europe’s premier race with a fully-tested resume. She has won eight of her 13 career races, seven of them in stakes, and it will be interesting to see how she figures in any re-match with Torquator Tasso if he reappears in the race in which he shocked the racing world nine months ago.

His form had been largely discounted before his success, the one grudging element being German horses’ punching-above-their-weight record in big races in France.

Despite form such as that with Alpinista – multiple group winner Walton Street was third - many felt it a fluke. That opinion was reinforced when he reappeared in late May and ran very moderately. However, on Saturday in Hamburg, Torquator Tasso ran away from his rivals, and his jockey Rene Piechulek was already pulling him up long before they reached the post.

That was also the situation before the corresponding race there in 2021 when, after a modest warm-up, he comfortably collected that Group 2 contest. His only subsequent loss that year was in Alpinista’s race at Hoppegarten.

I would love to see Alpinista win the Arc for Sir Mark. It has a ring to it and it would be a richly-deserved achievement for Kirsten Rausing whose home-bred horses do so well in major races. I know Richard Frisby, her advisor, will take a great amount of pleasure from Alpinista’s continued excellence.

I mentioned the Coral-Eclipse at the top of the article, and it wasn’t until I weighed what I said that I had to wonder whether John and Thady might have gone into one again, this time with Mishriff’s rider David Egan.

It was an excellent training performance from the boys (old and new) to have Mishriff right after the disappointment of his second shot at the Saudi Cup, won so lucratively the previous year. He finished a tailed-off last that day and it was quite an anti-climax as a repeat victory would have catapulted Prince Abdul Rahman Abdullah Faisal’s world traveller past Winx, Arrogate and Gun Runner to the top of the world racehorse earnings chart.

Not seen out since, and turning up at Sandown as a 7-1 shot encountering two 2022 Classic winners in Vadeni and Native Trail, the latter who followed his 2,000 Guineas second to Coroebus with victory in the Irish “2,000”.

After Alenquer made the running from, to my mind, the surprise favourite Bay Bridge, the race became one of those Sandown scrums. Horses and their riders seem to find trouble there even in small fields as they cluster near the far rail in the straight.

As in the Gold Cup at Ascot, the trick was to be out in the clear. As Alenquer faded, Bay Bridge got enveloped in the traffic. Native Trail came on a furlong out and as he went for home it looked as though the Gosden second string, Lord North (33/1), could pinch it on the rail. But then, as David Egan searched in vain for room through the middle of the pack, Christophe Soumillon sailed past on the wide outside aboard Vadeni.

Extricating his mount too late, Egan took Mishriff into an impressive and fast closing second, beaten a neck, passing Native Trail by a head close home with Lord North only half a length back in fourth.

When Vadeni won at Chantilly I reflected on what a massive result that Classic win had been for his sire, Churchill, coming as it did from his first crop. The Coolmore team had always been hoping that the dual Guineas winner would become one of the most important successors to his own sire, the recently deceased Galileo.

Such was the importance of Vadeni’s win to Ireland’s premier stud farm that Aidan O’Brien and the Coolmore partners chose not to challenge for the Eclipse last weekend. That cannot have happened very often over the past 20 years – please excuse me for not checking! [2012, Nathaniel’s year, the only time since at least 2004 – Ed.]

There are sales going on at Newmarket this week, just as they were in Deauville over the past few days. One trainer came back with an Aga Khan maiden three-year-old for €95,000, saying it was almost impossible to buy there.

I love the July sale, which is a great counter-point to the wonderful three days of the July meeting on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Of course, many old-stagers still feel the last day is an unnecessary and unfair extra competition to Ascot and York and, to a lesser extent, Chester.

I will be interested to see what Year Of The Dragon makes on Friday. Slightly unlucky when a close third at Kempton last week, his Timeform p (for Polytrack) 93 rating should compute to a nice price. For purely biased reasons I hope he makes plenty for his owner.

His trainer William Knight had reason to smile at Sandown when Checkandchallenge redeemed his reputation after his luckless 2,000 Guineas run with a fast-finishing second off 108 in a hot mile handicap. Native Trail had got in his way in the Classic and it would not be a shock if his trainer takes “Check” straight back into Group 1 level for his next start.

- TS