5 minute read
First Word September
Opening up with a bang
The Ebor meeting defies the laws of theatre, writes Paul Haigh
Nhey used to call York’s Ebor meeting “The Ascot of the North”. Just as well they’ve stopped that, because York has very little similarity to the Royal Meeting, except in the quality of its racing.
York is much more relaxed, much less formal. Whisper it, but the real phrase is much less pretentious. If anyone turned up to the Knavesmire in a morning suit he might be advised to tell a joke or two or get on his bike, or else be reminded that this was where where they hanged poor Dick Turpin in 1739.
One thing York does have in common with Ascot is its tendency to put some of its best goods in the shop window on Day 1. The Juddmonte International has been one of the world’s best races since it was invented in 1972 as the Benson & Hedges Gold Cup in what proved a vain attempt to bring Brigadier Gerard and Mill Reef up against each other one more time.
It has been recognised at least once as the best race anywhere on earth on more than one occasion since official rating of races began. In complete defiance of the laws of theatre, which decree that the climax should come at the end of dramatic productions not at the beginning, it’s still run on the first day of what’s now known as The Ebor Festival, presumably to placate handicap lovers who still like to pretend the Ebor itself is the highlight of the week.
This year, even in the absence of last year’s champion Cracksman, who is still being prepared in almost surreptitious fashion by John Gosden for what may yet turn out to be his one-year-too-late crack at the Arc, the International featured seven separate international Group 1 winners.
If any race beats that this year then it will deserve the take the title. With the mysterious dip in overseas form that has beset Aidan O’Brien this season still continuing, Gosden won it nevertheless, this time with the Eclipse winner Roaring Lion, who skipped away from his rivals so decisively they might have been handicappers themselves.
Some may think the presence in third of the only non-Group 1 winner Thundering Blue drags the form down a bit. Not at all.
It was the King George winner Poet’s Voice he outpaced, and Thundering Blue might just be a harbinger of the arrival in the big time of his trainer David Menuisier.
Roaring Lion has so obviously improved since not quite getting the trip in the Derby behind the now injured Masar that it’s already reasonable to think of him as Europe’s best three-year-old. Whatever race he takes on next looks like becoming another romp. It’s been said that he’ll never again be asked to run 1m4f but, given his trainer’s fondness for forays to the US where in his youth he used to train, it would be no surprise if the new middle-distance star’s ultimate destination this year turns out to be the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
York has two other Group 1 championship races: the 5f Nunthorpe Stakes, and the Yorkshire Oaks. A lot of fuss was made by the media, particularly TV, of the chance of Battaash in the Nunthorpe after the undoubted brilliance he’d shown at Goodwood.
Everyone got so excited they started measuring stride patterns and sectionals to make sure he really is just another thoroughbred and not some brand new proof that Darwin got this evolution business right.
But Battaash is a very highly strung horse who threw away his Nunthorpe chance last year by having what looked what looked a bit like a nervous breakdown when some dogs barked at him at the start.
And this year the odds-on favourite demonstrated yet again that there are no certainties in racing by finishing only fourth behind two near dead-heaters rated many points behind him.
His defeat when relatively calm in 2018 was a reminder, too, that some horses love the downhill rush at Goodwood, while others much prefer the flat expanses of York.
If you hadn’t had your life savings on the favourite it was good to see such a great Nunthorpe prize go to one of the sport’s rather less glamorous trainers in Bryan Smart, as well as the remarkable dignity shown by another Michael Dods in accepting the judge’s decision that Mab’s Cross had been beaten by the width of an optic fibre by Alpha Delphini.
The media had seemed almost orchestrated in declaring beforehand that Battaash was (or is?) “the fastest horse on the planet”, an incantation that seems as ignorant as it proved inaccurate.
There was no real reason for them to have believed he was quicker than the Hong Kong, Australian, Japanese or American sprinters, all of whom have the historical edge on the best speed horses in Europe.
To claim it must be so just because he’d won a Group 2 in sensational fashion and was now equipped with (no kidding) golden horseshoes, just revealed the insistent proclaimers as parochial wishful thinkers. He’s good, and he’ll be back again, but there’s no reason for wilful exaggeration – unless you just want to increase viewing figures.
Parochialism is inevitable in racing though. We all like to think that surely nothing can touch what we’ve got at home.
We can not leave York without mentioning two really sensational fillies though. Sea Of Class won the Yorkshire Oaks in a style that saw her immediately installed as Arc favourite.
But whether she’s much better, or indeed any better at all, than the 10l Listed Galtres Stakes winner Lah De Dar remains anybody’s guess. No comment until there’s more evidence to go on.
While we’re on the subject of parochialism though we need to mention Winx, now officially the best horse in the world, although there will be many around who’ll think she’s deserved that title for about the last three years.
On her return this August she won her 26th consecutive race, 19 of them Group 1s, to go past the record of the great Black Caviar in a way that suggested the impossible: that even as a seven-year-old mare she’s still getting better.
What makes her so good? Well, when they studied her stride they found it was actually shorter than normal, which means she can get in more of them while her longer striding opponents are still trying to get into gear. Probably just a partial explanation, but still interesting.
And because this is an international magazine we also need to mention Saratoga, America’s month long answer to York, and Saratoga’s (sort of, although it’s just for three-year-olds) answer to the Juddmonte International, the Travers. Before his retirement, the history-laden Travers was to have been the next stop for the unbeaten Triple Crown winner Justify.
The result of the race without him suggests that it would have been anything but a lap of honour for the Horse of the Year presumptive.
Neither Good Magic nor Gronkowski did anything for the credibility of American Classic form.
The Belmont Derby winner Catholic Boy won as he pleased from Mendelssohn, who came over from Ireland to prove again that as far as Ballydoyle is concerned form loss is only temporary.
A brilliant waiting in front ride by Ryan Moore may have had something to do with it, but really this is just a relatively lean year for Aidan O’Brien. His rivals will say “About time”.
And by the way, the northern retort to the implied condescension of the intended compliment that the Ebor meeting is the “Ascot of the North” is that “Ascot is the York of the South”. Just sayin’, as they say on Twitter.
