The turf
Buzz of expectancy
Robin Oakley
The best way to remember your wife's birthday, it has been said, is to forget it once. Those of us who were there for the 1997 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, when a comparatively unfancied Swain slogged through the mud for an epic victory, should have recalled the pain in our pockets on that occasion before advancing to the Tote window this time. Last year it was supposedly between the well-proven Pilsudslci, Singspiel and Helis- sio and Swain vanquished them all. This year all the talk in advance was of the unbeaten three-year-olds, Luca Cumani's Derby winner High Rise and Henry Cecil's late-maturing giant Royal Anthem, and of the four-year-olds Silver Patriarch, winner of the St Leger, and Daylami, the impres- sive victor three weeks earlier in the Coral Eclipse. Again it was the six-year-old Swain who proved the bravest and the best on the day.
Why did most of us write off Swain in advance this year? Partly because we assumed that it was the loathsome condi- tions in 1997 which had handed the race to the one horse undoubtedly capable of stay- ing not just the 12 furlongs of the King George but the extra furlong which they covered that year in search of better ground. But we also took into considera- tion the facts that Swain had not won for a year, that he had been done for finishing speed by Silver Patriach in Epsom's Coro- nation Cup and that he had lost to Posi- donas in the Hardwicke Stakes.
What we forgot was that when Swain was beaten by Silver Charm in the Dubai World Cup it was by only a whisker, and that was over only ten furlongs. He has speed as well as stamina. We failed to reg- ister sufficiently that in Happy Valentine (once an ante-post favourite for the Derby himself) Swain this time had the pacemak- er who had been lacking from his previous races this season. And we forgot the Frankie effect.
There is something about Frankie Det- tori and Ascot. 'Oh, you little beauty, I'll buy you a drink later,' came the shout from a hefty figure on the fourth floor after Frankie's flying dismount from Swain in the winner's enclosure. Following that famous seven-timer the Ascot crowd will never forget him and he seems to ride sev- eral pounds better than his formidable best elsewhere when he is in front of them. There is always that buzz of expectancy about a Dettori mount at Ascot. But just think of the headlines the next day if Swain had not won and Daylami had, after Frankie had rejected one of Godolphin's rising stars and handed the ride on the impressive grey to Michael Kinane.
The Dettori-Godolphin bond is a strong one. But, as Michael Roberts discovered when holding Sheikh Mohammed's retain- er, it took only a few instances of his choos- ing one of the Sheikh's horses for a race only to be beaten by another for the jungle tom-toms to start beating and for his posi- tion to become rapidly undermined. He was out within the year.
Frankie reckoned there was no dishon- our in Swain's defeat in the Coronation Cup and that the Hardwicke Stakes had been a muddling race which turned into a sprint finish. But he was still taking a real risk in opting for Swain, when Sheikh Mohammed himself after the Eclipse would have chosen Daylami. As the habitu- ally beaming Dettori told us after the race, 'When I picked Swain, suddenly everyone was leaving my corner.' After choosing Singspiel last year in preference to Swain, whom John Reid rode to victory, Frankie has paid a debt. And the consistent Swain, only ever out of the first four when racing once with a bruised foot, rewarded his faith.
We are left with much to look forward to. Swain, with a pacemaker, remains a formidable fighting force and will have one more go at winning the Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe. He may even, says Sheikh Mohammed, stay on in training as a seven- year-old if he is still enjoying his racing. But the ever-courteous Luca Cumani, as gracious in defeat as he was generous in his Derby victory, has campaigned High Rise cannily. He deliberately passed up the Irish Derby for High Rise, he said, in order to extend his horse's season at the other end and High Rise too will soon be Paris- bound, with fewer miles on the clock this season than Swain and with every prospect of an easier run than Olivier Peslier found him at Ascot. With Dream Well the favourite and those two in the field you should start booking your hotel rooms today. And I would not mind an ante-post bet right now on Royal Anthem for next year's King George. Henry Cecil is not known for over-hyping his horses and he says of this big-striding son of Theatrical, 'He'll be some horse in time.'
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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