On top form
Robin Oakley
Eloreplay can be even more fun than the real thing. For contests like the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes, where older horses take on the current Classic generation, I enjoy the parade-ring preliminaries nearly as much as the race. These top-class horses, hardtoned athletes with a few miles on the clock, know why they are there. They are, mostly, mature individuals who know how to cope with the pre-contest adrenalin surge. The globe-trotting Sulamani, calm and impassive, cast an intelligent eye on the crowd. Phoenix Reach, his forelegs bandaged, gleamed with health, the sun glinting off the brushwork on his quarters. Hard Buck looked lean and muscular. The old warrior Warrsan stopped for a moment before leaving the pre-parade ring until a tug on his reins persuaded him: 'Yes, there is serious business ahead.' The French filly Vallee Enchant& picked up her feet fastidiously as if you could not quite trust those perfidious English not to have left something nasty on the path.
But one horse stood out in parade-ring preliminaries. As his rider Frankie Dettori later said, Doyen swaggered into the ring looking as if he owned the place. The big Sadler's Wells colt was up on his toes, his neck proudly arched, ready to eyeball anybody who wanted to look at him. It was pure assertion. At home,' said Frankie, 'he just slobs around. But here he has so much presence.'
Working abroad, I had missed Doyen's course-record victory at Royal Ascot in the Hardwicke Stakes and, mindful that no horse without a previous Group One victory had won the King George, I had come intending to support the battle-hardened Warrsan against the favourite, with an each-way saver on the curiously disregarded American challenger Hard Buck, who had finished ahead of Warrsan in Dubai in the spring yet was on offer at 33-1 compared with Warrsan's 6-1. After watching Doyen lord it round the paddock, I became an instant convert. I went straight to the Tote window and backed Doyen to win, coupling him in the forecast (I have never taken to the word 'exacta') with both Warrsan and Hard Buck.
In the race Doyen was simply majestic. He cruised into the straight behind the leaders, was asked to pick up a furlong and a half from the finish and smoothly went three lengths clear of Hard Buck, who held on to second place by a head from Sulamani. Warrsan was trapped on the rails
and never got out to mount a challenge.
Doyen's victory was one Frankie Dettori will remember even more than his earlier success on Nightfall, who had given Britain's favourite jockey his 2,000th winner, although only after dumping him on his bottom on the way to the start. 'They're calling it good to firm,' said the bruised but irrepressible Dettori. The bit I landed on was definitely firm.' He was accused of over-hyping Doyen after the Royal Ascot victory but he had been proved right. Now he says that Doyen's victory was even easier than that of Daylami, who won the King George by five lengths. Like Daylami and Swain, Doyen, quoted at no better than 2-1 for the Arc and 4-1 for the Breeders' Cup, will now be allowed to display his talents on the equine world stage.
After picking up a forecast which paid £63 to the pound, I may be prejudiced. But Hard Buck's performance should not pass unnoticed. We will hear more over here of Kenny McPeek, a trainer with a degree in business studies who learned Portuguese so that he could go and buy good-value horses in Brazil, which is where he found Hard Buck. Before the race, he said that this was a sighting mission to enable him to size up the prospects of bringing horses over for Europe's big races. After the race, he was appreciative of the Ascot authorities and of Newmarket trainer Geoff Wragg, who hosted Hard Buck, and assistant trainer Hanne Jorgensen for his Ascot preparation.
McPeek was gracious, too, about the winner, calling Doyen 'a special horse, one of the most impressive horses I've set eyes upon'. But the US competitive spirit was there when he declared that while he was proud of what they'd done, second place was not enough. 'We've been second now in the Kentucky Derby, in the Breeders' Cup and now in the King George. I'd like to think that maybe one of them has got my name on it.' It would be a bold man who would give 33-1 against that, and the approachable McPeek will be welcome back.
I, too, had been embroiled in a key contest. My tipping qualities were on trial against the list of selections provided by the cleaning lady of my hostess at the excellent lunch hosted by Diamond Day sponsors De Beers, the perspicacious Fleur de Villiers. After the first race the cleaning lady was one up with Frankie's Nightfall. Then we both had Mister Monet in the second and the second horse home Valentin in the third. The cleaning lady went two up by selecting Doyen for the big one, where, before leaving for the parade ring, I had urged an each-way bet on Hard Buck. But she did not strike again, while I had Always Waining in the last. Given the each-way return on Hard Buck, that left me ahead in profit terms, though not on winners. 'Typical journalist,' sniffed Mrs Oakley at this claim. And she pointed out that, while the cleaning lady clearly has alternative career prospects as a tipster, she could not recommend me to anybody as a cleaner ...
Previous page
