Galileo Gold blew his chance by running too freely when eighth in his latest race, his trainer said on Monday. The chestnut, such an impressive winner of the 2,000 Guineas, is reckoned to be close to his peak once more for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Saturday but will need to be, with Minding and Ribchester expected to line up against him.
“I’m really confident he’s going to go to Ascot at the peak of his powers,” Hugo Palmer said after watching his Qatari‑owned colt cantering up Long Hill at 7am. The trainer would have given a different answer about a month ago, when the horse bruised a foot and missed work, leaving no margin for error in his preparation. Everything has gone smoothly since, Palmer reports, and he is inclined to think the horse will be better suited by his two-month absence than the mere 18 days between his Sussex Stakes success and his flop in the Prix Jacques Le Marois.
“Quite simply, we didn’t have the time between races to get the work into him to settle him down,” Palmer said. “He had the luxury of his own private jet to Deauville. Part of me just wonders whether, if we’d treated him a bit more normally, the edge might have been taken off him by the journey. He just was too fresh and he over-raced.”
Galileo Gold needs a lot of work if the fizz is to be kept out of him, to the extent of cantering every Sunday when most of his stablemates get the day off. Temperament has also dictated he does most of his work on Long Hill; months ago, he refused for days in a row to cross the road that separates it from Warren Hill and Palmer gave up trying to insist.
“People always think of horses like humans, that what they really want to do is lie on a beach and recharge their batteries for a fortnight. He doesn’t have a desire to sit down with an improving book. He’s a racehorse, he likes a routine and he enjoys training. He’s certainly showing no signs of being bored of it.”
Galileo Gold is reportedly “bang on his racing weight”, just 2kg below what he was when scoring at Royal Ascot. Now Palmer hopes a return to professional mid-race behaviour will help him turn around the Marois form with Ribchester. “He’s raced 10 times in his life; the first time he ran, he pulled his chance away and the last time he ran, he pulled his chance away, but every other time he’s been perfect. So I hope we can go back to what’s happened on the other eight times.”
Beyond that, discussions have yet to take place as to whether Galileo Gold will go to the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita next month or whether he will stay in training next year. He hopes to sway Sheikh Joaan by pointing to the £2.5m on offer to the winner of the Dubai Turf in March.
Palmer has a second shot at Qipco Champions Day glory with Architecture in the Fillies & Mares race. The bookmakers offer 20-1, which the trainer described as “crazy”. He said: “She hasn’t done a lot wrong all year. There was that glorious moment when we thought we’d won the Oaks. And there was a much shorter but equally glorious moment when I thought she’d won the Irish Oaks.
“By the looks of the betting, she’s got to take on the filly that beat her both at Lingfield and at the Curragh [Seventh Heaven]. But there’s no easy Group Ones and the same applies for that horse as it does for mine. They’ve got to bring their A game to win these races and they’re not machines.”
The season is now over for some of Palmer’s better horses, including Gifted Master, Escobar and Unforgetable Filly, but he may yet send Best Of Days, his Royal Lodge winner, to the Racing Post Trophy a week on Saturday. A fortnight after that, Home Of The Brave has a choice of races at the Breeders’ Cup.
“It’s hard to know what to do,” Palmer said. “The Mile looks very hot but it’s a much more valuable race. If Limato went to the Turf Sprint, maybe we’d be better to take on Tepin [in the Mile]. I can’t help thinking Tepin’s best form is with a little bit of cut in the ground,” which she is most unlikely to get at Santa Anita.
Such concerns are the preserve of the high-profile trainer and Palmer is already in that bracket, having made extraordinary progress since the seven winners of his first season five years ago.
“It’s been a dream come true, really. The big worry is that you can’t go on stepping up year on year because eventually there becomes nowhere to go. I’m just incredibly grateful for the support I’ve had and the horses I’ve got. It takes an awful lot of hard work from an awful lot of people.”
