The teeth, perhaps, were slightly gritted, but Richard Hannon offered some perspective after watching his colt, Rosallion, finish second to the 150-1 shot Qirat in the Sussex Stakes on Wednesday. “That’s horse racing,” the trainer said. “That’s what keeps us all in it. It’s not a great day when you’re second in these races but we’re lucky to be part of them.”
Mundane words like “shock” and “upset” do not come close to describing the result of this Group One contest, one of the most prestigious and prized events in the global racing calendar, which was won by a horse that finished 27th of 30 runners in the Royal Hunt Cup Handicap on his previous trip to the track.
Qirat, as the stewards drily noted afterwards, “appeared to show improved form compared with its previous run”. Ralph Beckett’s gelding was widely assumed to be in the race simply to ensure an even pace before Field Of Gold, the 1-3 favourite and, like Qirat, in the colours of the Juddmonte operation, swept through the field to victory. It was, as it transpired, a rash assumption.
The first part of the script played out much as expected, as Serengeti, the pacemaker for Aidan O’Brien’s Henri Matisse, worked his way to the front after a slow start and then went clear with Qirat and Richard Kingscote in close attendance.
At the point around two furlongs out where Field Of Gold was expected to start closing them down. However, it soon became clear that the favourite was struggling to make ground.
Instead, it was Sean Levy, on Rosallion, who set off in pursuit of the leaders, but as Serengeti dropped away, Qirat stayed on well and he was still two lengths in front at the furlong pole. Rosallion closed all the way to the winning post but Kingscote and Qirat still had a neck to spare at the line.
Qirat was the longest-priced winner of a Group One race in Britain since the grading system was introduced in the early 1970s. Field Of Gold was clearly a long way below his best on his first visit to this tricky downland track, but Kingscote also deserves great credit for a no-nonsense ride at a front-runners’ track, in a race where his rivals left themselves with too much to do.
Ralph Beckett, Qirat’s trainer, was certainly surprised to find himself in the winner’s enclosure afterwards, but not entirely astonished.
“We set out to go 12-second furlongs,” Beckett said. “That was the plan and what he did. It is as simple as that. They didn’t sit close to him and that is the end result. When he went past Serengeti, I could see they were not coming and I was fairly confident he would not stop.”
Kingscote described the outcome as “a bit surreal and not what I expected this morning” but the race was also a fine advertisement for his talent for judging the fractions in front, a gift that should find plenty of new fans when Kingscote sets off for a four-month stint in Hong Kong from the start of September.
“Towards the cut-away [around two furlongs out] I was thinking he was going well,” Kingscote said, “but you always expect the horses rated 20lb higher to be coming through.
“It is better to be going off [to Hong Kong] on a positive note. I’m looking forward to the opportunity but I have not burned bridges so I can always come back if need be.”
John Gosden, the trainer of Field Of Gold, said that the favourite “didn’t seem too well-balanced on the track”, adding: “He got a little unbalanced coming out of the dip into the bend, but I am not making any excuses. They ignored the pacemaker and paid the price.”
Fire can blaze a trail in Nassau
The five-runner field for Thursday’s Nassau Stakes is the joint-smallest this century for the Group One feature on the third day of Glorious Goodwood, but while Minding was a prohibitive 1-5 favourite to beat four opponents in 2016, this year’s renewal is a fascinating and open contest with four closely matched fillies at single-figure odds.
Whirl, the Oaks runner-up and a Group One winner in Ireland last time out, heads the three-year-old challenge alongside Cercene, last month’s Coronation Stakes winner, and Bedtime Story, who is looking to recapture the form of her impressive juvenile success at Royal Ascot last summer.
It is an impressive squad for the Classic generation, in a Group One where three-year-olds have enjoyed plenty of success in recent seasons. They face a stern four-year-old opponent in See The Fire (3.05), however, and Andrew Balding’s filly is a solid 2-1 shot to improve on her narrow defeat in this race 12 months ago.
See The Fire produced one of the most visually impressive performances of the season to finish a dozen lengths clear of her field in the Middleton Stakes at York in May in a fast time, and raced closer to the pace than the two that beat her in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot last month.
That run in open company confirmed that she is an improved performer this season and Ombudsman, the winner, went down only narrowly in the Eclipse next time out.
Goodwood 1.20 Best Secret was a big-money buy to join the Wathnan Racing operation before Royal Ascot last month and repaid at least a little of the outlay when finishing third in a strong renewal of the Golden Gates Handicap, despite finding plenty of traffic problems in the home straight. If James Doyle can keep him out of trouble from stall two, his proven turn of foot could well be decisive.
Goodwood 1.55 Clive Cox’s Coppull was a big outsider for the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot but took a major stride forward to finish third, just a neck behind the runner-up, Do Or Do Not. The latter colt franked the form when finishing second to Zavateri, Tuesday’s Vintage Stakes winner, next time up and Coppull has scope for significant further progress on just his third trip to the track.
Goodwood 2.30 This is a much-anticipated step into Group-race company for Merchant, who beat Serious Contender, the subsequent runner-up in the Irish Derby, by a length in the King George V Handicap at Royal Ascot last month. William Haggas’s colt was among the initial entries for last weekend’s Group One King George VI at Ascot and will be a warm order for this traditional trial for the St Leger at Doncaster in September.
Quick Guide
Greg Wood’s Thursday tips
Show
Goodwood 1.20 Best Secret (nb) 1.55 Coppull 2.30 Merchant 3.05 Sea The Fire 3.45 Ruby’s Profit (nap) 4.20 Steel Drum 4.55 Quiescent 5.30 Kaleido
Nottingham 2.18 Nebrook Star 2.53 Moby Quick 3.30 Dancingintherain 4.05 Mini Mac 4.40 Blenheim Lad 5.15 Dogged
Wolverhampton 5.45 Intervention 6.15 Loving Apprentice 6.45 Chutzpal 7.15 Change Sings 7.45 Love Is The Law 8.15 Mr Swivell 8.45 Bint Al Daar
Epsom 5.50 Etretat 6.25 Norfolk Blue 7.00 King’s Castle 7.30 Brielle 8.00 Uncle Simon 8.30 Muscika
Goodwood 3.45 Ascot’s stiff final furlong was the undoing of Ruby’s Profit at the Royal meeting last month but this return to a sharp five furlongs should see her in a much better light. The speedy front-runner was a course-and-distance winner in May off a 5lb lower mark and she remains well-handicapped on that form.
