Tag Archive for: Richard Kingscote

Spiritual awakens to take the Coral Distaff at Sandown

John and Thady Gosden took home the Coral Distaff at Sandown, but it was with 25-1 outsider Spiritual rather than 9-4 favourite Regal Jubilee.

Second amongst useful company at York in May, the George Strawbridge-owned daughter of Invincible Spirit was bounced out the stalls and immediately sent to the front in the hands of Richard Kingscote.

She faced a strong challenge up the home straight as Regal Jubilee, Royal Ascot scorer Soprano and Ralph Beckett’s Indelible all took aim at the front-running filly.

However, she never backed down and responded with real enthusiasm to her rider’s urgings, beating off the opposition and coming home a length and a quarter ahead of Indelible.

Soprano settled for third, while Regal Jubilee was unplaced in fourth as her stablemate took home the spoils.

Kingscote said: “Her team have obviously done a lot of work to settle her and she has form on slow ground and it all worked out well on the day.

“She kept responding and it is very windy up the straight which may have stopped the others making too much ground on us. But as I say everything went really nicely for her and it was a good result.

“She’s obviously learning and is still lightly raced. She’s going the right way so there is no reason to think that she can’t come on for today.

“It’s very nice to ride decent horses for decent people and hopefully I will be lucky enough to get on another one.”

Thady Gosden added: “She won very well, she ran a nice race to be second at York last time out and obviously the stiff mile at Sandown suited her well.

“It’s good to make her a stakes winner. She’s a Listed winner now so we’ll step her up in class and see where we go.”



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Kingscote pays tribute to Derby hero Desert Crown

Richard Kingscote has paid a heartfelt tribute to Desert Crown after last year’s Derby winner was put down on Monday.

Kingscote had not long since ended his lengthy association with Tom Dascombe to ride for Sir Michael Stoute whenever Ryan Moore was unavailable in August 2021 when he partnered Desert Crown to a debut victory at Nottingham three months later.

The Nathaniel colt was not seen again until the following May in the Dante Stakes at York, where he impressed and then headed to the Derby as the favourite.

He cruised around Epsom, running out one of the most impressive winners in recent years, but sadly only made it to the track once more and eventually his injuries caught up with him.

Kingscote took to social media to say: “I have been asked about my thoughts on Desert Crown a few times.

“Firstly I’m most sorry for the staff at Sir Michael’s who adored him and who are all heartbroken.

“Secondly I’m sorry to racing fans in that we will never get to see how brilliant he could have been. And that I don’t have the vocabulary to explain how amazing he was.

“I will always be grateful to him for looking after me on those two big days last summer, he was a gentleman and an awesome racehorse.

“I feel blessed and somewhat embarrassed that it was me who got to feel his brilliance. RIP DC.”



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Monday Musings: Classic Modesty

There’s modesty and then there’s Dubaian owner Ahmad Al Shaikh, writes Tony Stafford. We’ve known each other for more than 30 years, since he used to be the media specialist attached to the Sheikh Mohammed entourage when our main topic, apart from the racing, was our mutual lack of success in keeping off the kilos.

Ever genial, and now pleasingly if not excessively trimmed, Ahmad worked for his country’s first official newspaper Al Ittihad and he remains an advisor. He was employed by the Dubai Government but always loved his trips to Europe for the major race meetings when the Sheikh Mohammed support team was much more in evidence than now.

Why modest? I think this covers it. We bumped into each other in the paddock at Epsom before last year’s Derby. Introducing me to his colleague, he said: “I’m here to support my friend – he has the favourite for the big race.” The friend was Saeed Suhail and his horse Desert Crown, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, duly won the Classic as the 5/2 market leader.

What Ahmad declined to say as we spoke was that he also had a runner in the race, and his horse Hoo Ya Mal, a 150/1 chance trained by Andrew Balding and ridden by David Probert, finished a creditable runner-up. That was Al Shaikh’s second Derby, and third Classic, runner-up, all at big prices.

Khalifa Sat, also trained by Balding, was second at 50/1 in the Covid Derby of 2020 won by shock Aidan O’Brien outsider Serpentine, and Glory Awaits was another 150/1 no-hoper when runner-up to Jim Bolger’s Dawn Approach in the 2013 2000 Guineas when trained by Kevin Ryan.

All three Classic placed runners were cheaply-bought and that is the normal strategy of this sensible man, whose latest big-race winner, Dubai Mile, has just left Charlie Johnston, Ahmad having sold a half share to Martyn Meade.

A £20k purchase by Mark Johnston at the 2021 Goffs Orby sale, he is a son of the ill-fated Roaring Lion, who covered only for one season at a fee of £40k. The Johnston pattern is always to buy and then issue a list to existing and prospective owners. Ahmad had the speed off the mark to secure him.

Dubai Mile’s appeal as a potential stallion is obvious, having won twice as a juvenile before finishing a close second to The Foxes in the Royal Lodge at Newmarket and then winning the Group1 Criterium De Saint-Cloud over one mile, two furlongs.

Fifth in the Guineas, he couldn’t match the exploits of his two predecessors in the Derby, but having switched from Charlie Johnston, he will race for the rest of this season for Freddie and Martyn Meade before hopefully joining Aclaim and co in their stallion team.

“It’s always been my ambition to own a stallion, so I rejected many offers to sell him. But when Martyn Meade came along with an offer to buy a half with a view to standing him as a stallion, I was delighted. I can’t wait to see his progeny running on the track.”

Al Shaikh does have a smaller interest with another stallion, Khalifa Sat, who was the result of a foal share between the Irish National Stud, who own Free Will, and Lacken Stud, owners of the mare Thermopylae. Twenty years old at the time of her covering by the then first-season stallion Free Will, she has produced ten previous foals, and Khalifa Sat was the last of hers to race. Seven in all were winners.

Khalifa Sat had cost £40k, also at Goffs Orby, and won more than three times that for his Derby second place alone. He had one more, unsuccessful, run and was then retired owing to lameness. He stands at a fee of €2,000 at Lacken Stud.

The post-Epsom story of the two horses that finished one-two last year is interesting, and it’s a matter of opinion, which of the two friends has fared better in the aftermath of that epic day in June last year.

Desert Crown did not race again in 2022 despite having several possible targets and stayed in training as a four-year-old. He made a very promising reappearance after more than eleven months off with a close second to subsequent King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner Hukum in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown.

He of course also had the King George on his agenda but had to miss it and then last month came the unkindest cut of all, a fractured fetlock when undergoing his final piece of work preparing for the Juddmonte International at York. He has had screws fitted and Bruce Raymond, racing manager to Mr Suhail, says, “The operation went well but he isn’t out of the woods yet.” Obviously there will be no question of his running again in 2023 and the issue of whether the son of Nathaniel will race on as a five-year-old will need to be addressed.

Ahmad didn’t allow himself too long to dwell on his colt’s exploits at Epsom. In the days between Epsom and Royal Ascot, the Goffs London sale at Kensington Palace Gardens offers owners wishing to sell prospective Royal meeting runners the chance of securing a top price. Mr Al Shaikh needed no second bidding.

Hoo Ya Mal was an obvious target for the stamina-loving Australian market and appealed as a potential Melbourne Cup candidate.

George Boughey was the immediate beneficiary as Hoo Ya Mal was sold for £1.2 million to the bid of Gai Waterhouse. He had three runs for Boughey while awaiting the journey Down Under, winning the Group 3 March Stakes (1m6f) at the late August meeting at Goodwood, then took in the St Leger (8th of 9).

He ran his first race for Waterhouse and co-trainer Adrian Bott in the Melbourne Cup, without having a prep race. The Australian pattern usually involves at least one and probably two settling-in runs before Flemington for European imports in the race that stops a nation on the first Tuesday in November. Without any prep, 12th of 22 reads well.

Ms Waterhouse and Bott waited a full ten months before getting the now four-year-old gelding back on a racecourse. They chose a Group 3 contest over a wholly insufficient mile – that is the manner of Australian training! – last Saturday at Randwick and he was beaten just over a length in fifth of 11. I can smell a Melbourne Cup with the more normal training pattern of one of Australia’s great handlers already in motion.

With the £344K for last year’s Derby second – worth almost three times the figure of the Covid year – and the £1.2 million for the sale, you’d think Ahmed would be stretching the purse strings a little, but emphatically no.

He says, “A horse has a nice pedigree and looks nice; he can cost a fortune. But nearly all the horses, for example in Tattersalls Book 1, are nicely bred and any of them can be potentially good. I’ve bought plenty of slow horses, but so have the people who pay millions, I prefer to be sensible and able to afford and enjoy my racing.”

He has a couple of promising youngsters on the track this year. Sayedaty Sadaty (€30k from Germany) won at the fourth time of asking for the Balding stable the other day, making up for a roguish display on his previous outing when inexplicably taking himself out of a race by running through the running rail at the intersection at Windsor.

Erratic steering was also in evidence in the Kempton score, but despite hanging badly left across to the stand rail, he still had lengths to spare (and plenty more in his locker by the look of it) in hand of his rivals. It will be interesting to see his first handicap mark tomorrow.

The other youngster he was keen to mention in our chat was Deira Mile. Ahmad splashed out a bit (for him) at 47,000 Guineas but the signs from his first run for Charlie Johnston were bright indeed. You rarely got a Johnston two-year-old runner in Mark’s days going to one of the top southern tracks for its debut so you guess that the team had a decent enough regard for the son of Camelot.

Starting 25/1 for a competitive maiden, he lost ground from the stalls and ran green throughout yet still got within a short head and a neck of another Camelot colt, Defiance, trained by Roger Varian, in third place. Defiance had cost 150 grand as a yearling and you couldn’t be sure if they lined up again that the result would be the same. Knowing Ahmad’s sure touch with buying and trading horses and not to put too fine a word for it, amazing good fortune so far, big things can be expected from this very promising colt.

It’s not just where horses are concerned that this one-time journalist is sharp. Last week he signed up Richard Kingscote as his retained jockey. Kingscote, the man who won the Derby on Desert Crown, has a prior commitment with Sir Michael Stoute but will be available for most of the time his new employer needs him.

I told Ahmad the story of when I met Richard’s grandma in Tesco’s supermarket in Bromley-by-Bow, East London. It was early one morning, and I had picked up a Racing Post – my usual shop didn’t have one yet. She said: “Oh, you like racing. My grandson is a jockey, Richard Kingscote.” You could see how proud she was. Imagine what she felt when he won the Derby!

  • TS


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Kingscote has much to look forward to next week

Richard Kingscote is looking forward to arguably his best ever book of rides at Royal Ascot.

Despite having originally being overlooked for Desert Crown – who now does not run – in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, he will be on Bay Bridge for Sir Michael Stoute as long as the ground is not considered too quick.

As well as the Champion Stakes winner, Infinite Cosmos is among the favourites for the Ribblesdale, Astro King heads the market for the Royal Hunt Cup and there will be several others trained by Stoute for Kingscote when Ryan Moore is required by Aidan O’Brien, including the promising Perfuse.

Infinite Cosmos promises to be a big player in the Ribblesdale StakeS
Infinite Cosmos promises to be a big player in the Ribblesdale Stakes (David Davies/PA)

Kingscote said: “I’ve got plenty to look forward to next week, I’ll be very busy and hopefully I can get something on the board.

“I’ve got a few good chance, but I don’t know what is 100 per cent going to run.

“If Bay Bridge runs in the Prince of Wales’s he’ll run a great race and the filly in the Ribblesdale (Infinite Cosmos) would look to have a good chance.

“Then there’s the likes of Perfuse in the King George V and a few that look to have a good chance, but at this stage I’m just not sure if they’ll get in.

“I’ve got some nice rides, including the favourite in the Hunt Cup (Astro King) for Dan and Claire Kubler.”



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Ganton glory with Chichester for Dalgleish and Kingscote

Richard Kingscote lamented the fact Keith Dalgleish plans to leave the training ranks having partnered his Chichester to victory in the Seat Unique Ganton Stakes at York.

Dalgleish announced earlier this year he planned to do something else and was not leaving the profession for financial reasons. And with results like this he will clearly be a loss.

A talented former rider, Dalgleish is closing in on 1,000 winners. Chichester (15-2) has provided him with six of them, but this was by far the biggest with the Listed event carrying an almost £40,000 first prize.

When odds-on favourite Shining Blue hit the front he looked sure to collect for Saeed bin Suroor, but Kingscote had been biding his time on Chichester who stayed on strongly to win by a length and three-quarters.

“It was a great bit of placing by connections, they found a five-runner Listed race for good money so fair play,” said the Derby-winning jockey.

“I always thought I was getting there, we actually went a decent pace for once because in general of late we’ve been going steady but he was able to get into a nice rhythm.

“He found plenty. He’s a funny old boy, he’s more than capable as we’ve seen but sometimes he needs things to go his way. He stays this trip well, he ran over 10 furlongs the last day.

“Keith knows what he’s doing and it’s a great shame he’s handing in his licence – he can certainly do the job.”

Radio Goo Goo has been a revelation this season for David Evans
Radio Goo Goo has been a revelation this season for David Evans (Tim Goode/PA)

The improvement of the David Evans-trained Radio Goo Goo (11-2) shows no signs of stopping after she won her fourth race in a row in the British EBF Supporting Racing With Pride Fillies’ Handicap.

She won first time out this year at Wolverhampton off 72, was beaten on Good Friday at Lingfield and then rattled off a treble at Chester, Haydock and back at Chester.

Racing off a career-high 86 she looked beaten, but just got the better off Al Simmo by a nose under Ben Curtis.

“To be honest she wasn’t really travelling so I had to sit on her a bit longer than I wanted to fill her up,” said Curtis.

“I didn’t think I was going to win, but the last few strides her ears went back and she really wanted it.

“She finished second a fair few times last year, but that was over five and she kept bumping into one. She’s stronger this year and is better suited to six and Dave’s horses are flying at the moment. Hopefully she can keep rising.

The most valuable race of its kind every season is the SKF Rous Selling Stakes which went the way of Ollie Pears’ Celestial Flight (7-1) in a photo finish.

Celestial Flight (right) just got home in front
Celestial Flight (right) just got home in front (Tim Goode/PA)

James Sullivan’s mount prevailed by a head from Up The Jazz on his second start and was bought back in for £25,000.

“We always like to target this. For an inexpensive horse it gives the owners a fantastic day out and the chance to run for a big pot,” said Pears.

“I bought him back in as there would have been an awful lot of disappointed people here if I hadn’t.

“We think he’s a horse who should go on and he’s a horse who should get seven furlongs.”

Harvanna (right) showed the benefit of her debut
Harvanna (right) showed the benefit of her debut (Tim Goode/PA)

Karl Burke saddled his 11th individual juvenile winner of the season when Harvanna (5-1) won the Juddmonte British EBF Fillies’ Restricted Novice Stakes after finishing third on her debut.

Clifford Lee was on top and said: “She learned a lot on her debut and we saw the benefit of that.

“We’ve got some nice two-year-olds, hopefully I’ll be on a couple next week and we’ll just see how the ground is and everything before finalising.”

Mick and David Easterby’s Menelaus (15-2) followed up a recent win at Thirsk when stylishly pulling clear in the Andy Thornton Hospitality Furniture Apprentice Handicap under Connor Planas.

It was a third success in his last four rides for Planas, who is enjoying a breakthrough season.



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Roberto Escobarr rules for Haggas in Henry II Stakes

Roberto Escobarr gained his first success since June 2021 when making all the running to win the Racehorse Lotto Henry II Stakes at Sandown.

Trained by William Haggas, the son of Galileo is now six but in his younger days looked destined to be winning races like this Group Two event when taking a Listed contest at York on just his fifth ever outing.

He only made it to the track once in 2022 and was returning from 399 days off when third at Wolverhampton in March.

Fitter for that, he was sent off the 7-5 favourite and Richard Kingscote sent him into an early lead and was never headed.

Nate The Great pestered him all the way to the line, but the winner was always holding him and prevailed by a neck.

Haggas’ charge was cut to 10-1 from 14s for the Northumberland Plate by Betfair.

Richard Knight, representing owner Hussain Alabbas Lootah, said: “In fairness to him, he was off a lot of last year and we brought him back and hoped he would qualify for the All-Weather Finals day. He was just a little bit rusty in the qualifier and finished third.

“We have just been waiting for this quicker ground. He wants this good, good to firm ground and he is slightly unexposed over two miles.

“It is lovely for him to win his Group race and his brother Pablo Escobar also won his Group race.

“He is as genuine as anything and Richard said he was always comfortable in front and he stuck his head down and fought to the line.

“We haven’t discussed any further than today. We are slightly ground dependent. We just don’t want to run on soft ground.”



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Kingscote eager to get acquainted with Infinite Cosmos

Richard Kingscote will partner leading Oaks contender Infinite Cosmos for the first time in the Tattersalls Musidora Stakes at York.

Narrowly beaten by the reopposing Sea Of Roses on her Doncaster debut last season, the Sir Michael Stoute-trained filly rocketed to the head of ante-post lists for next month’s Epsom Classic following a runaway success on her reappearance at Newmarket earlier this month.

Ryan Moore was on board Infinite Cosmos on Town Moor and on her Rowley Mile return, but as he is required to ride Lambada for Aidan O’Brien in Wednesday’s Group Three contest, last season’s Derby-winning jockey Kingscote can look forward to being in the saddle on the Stoute runner.

He said: “She’s a nice filly who was impressive at Newmarket. Hopefully we will learn more this week.”

Infinite Cosmos is a hot favourite to enhance her Classic claims faced with seven rivals on the opening afternoon of York’s Dante Festival.

The Andrew Balding-trained Sea Of Roses beat her by a short head at Doncaster seven months ago and must be respected for the rematch after chasing home Andre Fabre’s Pensee Du Jour in a French Group Three on her comeback.

Gather Ye Rosebuds won by nine and a half lengths on her introduction at Newbury last month and is stepped up in class by fledgling trainer Jack Channon.

Novakai and Midnight Mile both bring quality juvenile form to the table for Yorkshire-based trainers Karl Burke and Richard Fahey having finished second in the Fillies’ Mile and fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf respectively.

David Simcock’s once-raced Lingfield winner Empress Wu and John and Thady Gosden’s Soul Sister, who finished last of 12 in the Fred Darling at Newbury a few weeks ago, complete the field.



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Kingscote counting down the days to Desert Crown return

Richard Kingscote has expressed his delight at keeping the ride on Derby hero Desert Crown this season.

The Nathaniel colt pleased Sir Michael Stoute in his first bit of strong work on the Al Bahathri Polytrack gallop in Newmarket on Wednesday when he pulled clear of his lead horse Solid Stone.

It has subsequently been announced Kingscote will retain the mount, despite Stoute’s long-standing link with Ryan Moore.

The Saeed Suhail-owned Desert Crown is due to return in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown on May 25.

Kingscote said: “I never expected to keep the ride, but very kindly Sir Michael and the owner said I can.

“He was an awesome Derby winner and I’m very excited by him.”



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