Monday Musings: A York Debrief
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.
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