Aidan O’Brien’s strong team of horses for Glorious Goodwood later this month, including the unbeaten dual Classic winner Gleneagles, will be ridden by “the best jockey available” in the expected absence of his principal rider, Ryan Moore, a spokesman for the Ballydoyle stable said on Monday.
Moore remains in Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge following an incident before the start of a race at Newmarket on Thursday, when he was unseated in the stalls. Moore complained of pain in his neck immediately afterwards and is expected to receive further details about the nature and extent of any injury on Wednesday.
Moore’s father Gary, however, has already suggested that his son will need “at least a month” to recover, while Joseph O’Brien, his father’s main jockey until earlier this year, is unlikely to be able to ride at the required weight of 8st 13lb when Gleneagles lines up against Solow, the Queen Anne Stakes winner at Royal Ascot, in the Group One Sussex Stakes, Glorious Goodwood’s feature race.
As a result Kevin Buckley, the UK representative of the Coolmore Stud, which backs the O’Brien stable, accepted on Monday that the colt is likely to have a new jockey on 29 July.
“Ryan’s unfortunate accident only happened relatively recently,” Buckley said, “and we’re still all waiting for updates on further tests which I believe are taking place in the middle of this week. So this is an injury which is going to take a lot of time and it’s important that he takes that time to get back to himself.
“As regards riding arrangements for Goodwood, we’ve always chosen the best available on the day and I’m sure that this will probably be the case during the Glorious Goodwood meeting.”
This year’s meeting will be staged as the Qatar Goodwood Festival as the result of a new 10-year sponsorship deal, which also includes significant increases in the prize money for many events. The Sussex Stakes will be Goodwood’s first £1m race while the Stewards’ Cup Handicap, the main betting race of the week, will be worth £250,000.
“At this moment in time it would be the biggest challenge we have sent to Glorious Goodwood,” Buckley said.
“I spoke to Aidan and Joseph [who rides Gleneagles at exercise] at Newmarket on Saturday and they said that he’s in great shape and did a nice piece of work the previous day. He’s a specialist miler and Aidan O’Brien holds him in very high esteem.
“He’s a very tough horse, with a low action and you can see the Giant’s Causeway [the 2000 Sussex Stakes winner] coming through in him. His dam [You’resothrilling] was a full-sister to Giant’s Causeway who won the Cherry Hinton and he’s by the best sire in the world in Galileo.
“We could have three two-year-olds running. Air Vice Marshal could take his place in the Vintage Stakes, in the Molecomb there’s Washington DC, who won the Windsor Castle Stakes [at Royal Ascot], and then in the Richmond we’re looking strongly at Air Force Blue, who was a very respectable second in the Coventry.”
Gleneagles is top-priced at 5-6 for the Sussex Stakes with Solow, the winner of his last seven starts, next in the betting at 13-8.
Freddy Head, Solow’s trainer, said on Monday: “He’s an easy horse to ride and has plenty of speed, so the track will not be a problem for him.
“It’s going to be tough. Gleneagles is a very good horse and is the champion but he has had a hard season for a three-year-old maybe after running in the St James’s Palace [at Royal Ascot last month]. The only thing I wish is that I could have a little rain and a little softer ground. That would help me.”
Frankie Dettori, who rode his first winner in Britain at Goodwood nearly 30 years ago, expects to have a strong book of rides at the meeting thanks to his associations with both John Gosden, the season’s leading trainer, and the leading Qatari owner Sheikh Joaan al-Thani, the prime mover behind the track’s new sponsorship deal.
The Italian’s best chance of a Group One winner – unless he gets the call to ride Gleneagles – will be Star Of Seville, the Prix de Diane [French Oaks] winner, in the Nassau Stakes on the final day of the meeting. He is also expected to ride Shalaa, the July Stakes winner at Newmarket last week, in the Richmond Stakes.
“She’s definitely a mile-and-a-quarter filly, she showed that in the Musidora and she tried the Oaks [over an extra quarter-mile] that was too far and a mile-and-a-quarter at Goodwood is what she wants,” the jockey said. “On the same day it’s the Stewards’ Cup, which I’ve never won, and Charlie Hills runs a horse [Magical Memory] that should give me a good spin.”
Dettori also made it clear that he feels fortunate to be riding at the highest level at all, having thought that his career might be over after a six-month riding ban for testing positive for cocaine which ended in June 2013.
“I was on the verge of retiring because I couldn’t get a job but Sheikh Joaan gave me a second chance,” Dettori said. “I said to my wife I would probably have carried on to the end of the season and then found some alternative jobs, I couldn’t really find a way out. Sheikh Joaan has put me back to where I was a while ago.”
