John Gosden, who started his training career in a barn at Santa Anita and won the Breeders’ Cup Classic at the track in 2008, said on Tuesday that his top-class fillies Journey and So Mi Dar will both miss this year’s meeting next month and raised concerns that the turf track at the course will ride “like lightning”.
So Mi Dar, owned by Lord and Lady Lloyd Webber, won the Musidora Stakes at York in May, but was off the track until September because of injury before finishing third in the Group One Prix de l’Opera at Chantilly earlier this month. She was seen as a possible runner in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf, along with Journey, who was an impressive winner of the British Champions Fillies And Mares Stakes at Ascot last Saturday.
Gosden said: “So Mi Dar is a very talented filly but I think at this stage of her career she is like a 16-year-old ballerina, and it is too soon for her to be going out there on a very firm, fast track.
“I’ve discussed it in depth with her owners, and we are very clear in our mind that it is a year too soon to go for that kind of race on that kind of track. It is no criticism of the track – they only put the course in during the summer and a lot of good friends have told me it’s riding like lightning. That’s it for the year and we will focus on Del Mar and the Breeders’ Cup 2017.”
Journey, owned by George Strawbridge, will also stay in training next year, when she will be five years old, with the Middleton Stakes at York’s Dante meeting in May seen as an obvious place to start.
Gosden added: “Mr Strawbridge wants to keep her in Europe – she has just won over a mile and a half at Ascot and coming out of Swinley Bottom is not the same as running down the hill on a flat track over a mile and a quarter at Santa Anita.
“He is very keen to keep her here now she is flourishing. She will stay in training and be pointed towards the Middleton. She is only just getting going now she is turning from four to five.”
Old Guard, who got no further than the first fence when sent off at odds of 1-5 for his recent chasing debut at Newton Abbot, got off the mark over the larger obstacles at the second time of asking with a hard-fought neck defeat of Imperial Presence in the Best Mate Beginners’ Chase at Exeter on Tuesday.
Paul Nicholls’s five-year-old was a high-class performer over hurdles, with his victories last season including a two-length success in the Greatwood handicap hurdle at Cheltenham and a one-length win in the Grade Two International Hurdle at the same track a month later.
He has yet to reach anything like the same level of form over fences, however, and was far from fluent in the early stages of Tuesday’s race, under Nick Scholfield. Old Guard then blundered badly at the fourth last before rallying to get the upper hand over Imperial Presence in the closing stages.
“He’s won, which is what the aim of the game was today,” Nicholls said. “He jumped a bit novicey, but to be fair to him, after the mistake he made at the fourth-last, he did well to come back and win. Nick felt he would have won nicely but for that mistake.
“Nick feels he wants two and a half miles and we always felt he was going to be a stayer. He’ll be fine, he just needs practice and confidence. It just takes some horses longer than others to get the hang of it.”
