There might be just one race left in Enable’s career, following what seemed a significant hint from John Gosden that the great mare may not run again before the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in October.
The Newmarket trainer reported early signs are she is recovering well from Saturday’s King George, in which she prevailed after a thrilling struggle with Crystal Ocean, but it must have been a taxing race on rain-softened ground. This may induce caution in her connections as to how she is campaigned for the rest of the year.
The established plan before Saturday had been for Enable to run at York next month in either the Yorkshire Oaks or the Juddmonte International. The incentives to take her there include the fact her owner, Prince Khalid Abdullah, sponsors the International and his spokesman, Lord Grimthorpe, is the chairman of York racecourse. But all parties agree the key aim is to try to make her the first horse to win the Arc for a third time.
“She’ll tell us what she wants to do,” Gosden said on Racing TV on Sunday morning. “She’s very expressive. We talked about it, with Teddy Grimthorpe as well, whether we go to York or whether we just go straight to the Arc. We’ll start making those decisions in the next week.
“I think the key thing is whether she goes to York or whether we do the other thing, just freshen her up, and she runs well fresh, and bring her up to the Arc without having taken any risks in going anywhere else.”
The allusions to risks and to Enable running well when fresh suggest Gosden is minded to skip a trip to York, which would require the mare to race again less than four weeks after her Ascot exertions. Cutting out York and going straight to Longchamp would allow her 10 weeks between races. William Hill was the first bookmaker to react, pushing Enable out to a top price of 11-8 for the Juddmonte International, while other firms still have her at odds-on.
On the other hand, Enable is apparently showing no signs of her King George success under Frankie Dettori having taken any sort of toll. “She’s about 25 yards from me, having a pick of grass,” Gosden said.
“She got back last night and ate all of her feed up. She races more like an old pro now rather than the youthful exuberance of her three-year-old year, she’s a little more measured in everything, I think. She seems in good order this morning. Mr Dettori came round and he looks pretty tired, actually, more tired than her.”
As the trainer acknowledged, Dettori did as much as he could to minimise the stresses of the race on his mount, using his whip only once behind the saddle. “I think he probably felt he had it under control,” Gosden said. “You want to keep the horse balanced, that’s very important … If your horse is balanced and stretching, you’re not really going to do much good by giving them a slap, you’re much better stretching with the horse and keeping them balanced. He knows her well, she was in full flight and he wasn’t going to disturb that.”
Gosden was shocked during his contribution to the Luck On Sunday programme to learn Roaring Lion, trained by him to win four Group Ones in a row last year, has had emergency surgery at a stud in New Zealand. The grey was found to be suffering from colic soon after being released from quarantine on Saturday, having recently travelled from Britain, and has reportedly made “a favourable recovery in the first 24 hours post-surgery”, according to an official at Cambridge Stud.
Completing a big weekend for British-trained females, Laurens won the Prix Rothschild at Deauville on Sunday. It was the sixth Group One win of her career but, more importantly, her first in a year that had threatened to become disappointing when she was unplaced at Royal Ascot.
Karl Burke, her trainer, acknowledged in the winner’s enclosure that the team behind her had begun to worry it may have been a mistake to keep her in training this year but another £154,000 in prize money settles that question. This was her third win in France and she may return there for the Prix Jean Romanet next month or wait for the Matron Stakes in Ireland in September.
