All weekend action

The racing was pretty full on, and right around the world, writes Paul Haigh

Every now and then in racing you get weekends in which too much happens. The middle weekend of September was an outstanding case in point. Better start at the top and move on downwards. If the order isn’t right, please forgive.

Winx won another race. This isn’t really news. It might have been if she hadn’t already won her last 26, 20 of them Group 1s. But as things stand this was a case of “situation normal”.

Perhaps in order to make things more interesting some of those who witnessed the Group 1 Colgate Optic White Stakes said they thought as the field turned for home that there seemed a chance she might not win. They based their judgement on the fact that Hugh Bowman had to make a polite request for more speed rather earlier than he normally does when she races: that and the fact that the horses in front of her were about the best of the rest in Australia.

In the end Winx only won by over 4l, which rather suggests she was never actually “in trouble”. Last month this column picked up on the information that she takes shorter strides than other horses, but fairly obviously takes them quite a lot more often. This implies she might just find life a little more difficult if she ever found herself asked to race on genuinely soft ground of the sort that’s normally found outside her homeland.

Since she’s never going to be asked to do any such thing there’s nothing much to say except that she continues to be phenomenal. No, something more than phenomenal. Bowman says he doesn’t expect there will ever be another like her, “not in my lifetime anyway”.

In the end Winx only won by over 4l, which rather suggests she was never actually “in trouble”

Nobody argues. So we might as well move on.

Sad news emerged from the other side of the Irish Sea – Irish Champions weekend saw the retirement of two horses of whom at one point or another in their careers it might have been suspected they could one day be in her class.

In the Group 1 Matron Stakes Alpha Centauri never seemed to be really travelling with her usual fluency and took a false step as she came to challenge the front-running Prix de Diane (G1) winner, Laurens.

She chipped a bone in her fetlock and was retired the next day.

In the Champion Stakes the dazzling 2,000 Guineas winner Saxon Warrior injured himself while he was in the process of being mown down by Roaring Lion.

The son of Kitten’s Joy is now indisputably the best three-year-old colt in Europe. Since Saxon’s Guineas win, Aidan O’Brien explained that he had made a mistake in trying to stretch the son of Deep Impact’s stamina to middle distances. How good Saxon Warrior might have been as a miler is anybody’s guess, but after he’d outclassed the field at Newmarket in May the temptation to go for the Triple Crown was too much for even O’Brien to resist.

Obviously neither of the retired horses would have made any impact on the Arc.

Nor will Roaring Lion in spite of his talent. John Gosden resolved after the Kitten’s Joy colt failed to stay in the Derby that he won’t be asked to tackle 1m4f again.

One who had already jumped to favouritism on the first Sunday on October though is last year’s champion Enable, also Gosden-trained. Some might think a victory on the All-Weather at Kempton is hardly proof she’s retained her ability after her long lay off, but the one she beat was the narrowly beaten in the King George Stakes and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (G1) runner-up Crystal Ocean, and she simply toyed with him.

There was talk at the end of last season that she might be in the same league as Winx. If she wins a second Arc, and the world’s best takes her fourth consecutive Cox Plate, that chit chat might start again.

Has anyone suggested the abolition of the sex allowance? Or maybe even turning it around? Something strange seems to be happening to the breed.

The deal over Justify’s future has now been resolved and the US Triple Crown winner, looking as gorgeous as ever, has now arrived at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud.

The Arc trials used to be of huge significance. That seems rather less true this year. Waldgeist won the Group 2 Prix Foy from the Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Talismanic in a style that suggested he might run into a place when he returns to ParisLongchamp.

Kitesurf, who only scraped home with a late run in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille, probably won’t. Bruntland just held on in the Prix Niel (G2). This year’s Japanese challenger Clincher showed nothing to encourage the idea his trip is going to be worth the fare.

Kew Gardens’s victory in the St Leger showed he’s honest and tough, but it didn’t really send anyone fumbling wild-eyed to the websites looking for his price in the world’s greatest race.

If there was an Arc horse on show at Doncaster it could still be Lah Ti Dar who followed him home. She was held up to get the St Leger trip, but flattened out late. If she’s sent to ParisLongchamp she wouldn’t be the first to enjoy the return to 1m4f after failing to get 1m6f plus.

The world’s oldest Classic is going through a good period after having once been written off as a contest for horses too slow to impress at shorter distances.

The Irish version next day offered nothing much to create mass hysteria. Appropriate perhaps that its running coincided with the retirement of Order Of St George, once the best stayer in Europe.

So much else happened globally to talk about that weekend there isn’t space to do it all justice. Maybe the only way to show that none of it should be ignored is simply to mention names: Too Darn Hot Skitter Scatter Quorto Woodbine Oscar Performance Hawkbill La Pelosa There were plenty of examples of brilliant riding that deserve mention too, most notably the cunning plan devised by Ballydoyle to give Saxon Warrior the best possible chance of beating his Eclipse conqueror in the Irish Champion Stakes.

This involved getting Deauville to set a less-thansearching pace before kicking Saxon Warrior clear early in the straight. Ryan Moore performed his part to usual perfection.

If Oisin Murphy, who with James Doyle is the fastest rising star among Moore’s reputational pursuers, had been less alert, and Roaring Lion a stride or two less talented, the Coolmore ploy would have worked. Maybe it would still have worked if Saxon Warrior hadn’t injured himself, but the truth is that the runner-up never noticeably shortened stride.

So much in so few days. The only place where nothing at all happened that weekend was Hong Kong where super-typhoon Mangkhut saw the cancellation of Sunday’s meeting.

It takes a lot to stop racing at Sha Tin on a Sunday where turnover now customarily nudges HK$1.5 billion (around £150 million) per card. But Mangkhut was, quite terrifyingly, a lot.

No doubt the HKJC was relieved in a way that Mangkhut delayed its arrival until after the official launch of the Club’s mega-project and likely game charger at Conghua a couple of weeks earlier.