John Gosden’s serene progress towards the Flat trainers’ championship continued on the opening day of the July meeting here on Thursday, as a double in the first two races with Mr Singh and Shalaa took him past £3m in prize money earnings in the current campaign. Richard Hannon, the reigning champion and his nearest pursuer, has still to pass £2m and though there are some huge prizes still to be won, this particular race already looks run.
There is such depth to Gosden’s team this year that the unique achievement of a £5m season is still a possibility. Even the defeat of the trainer’s Mahsoob, the favourite, behind the 25-1 winner Big Orange in the Group Two Princess Of Wales’s Stakes, left Golden Horn, his Derby winner, as an even stronger favourite for the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot later this month. Mr Singh will be put away until the St Leger in September, while Shalaa will be a contender for the major juvenile Group Ones. Every generation in the Gosden yard is doing its bit.
Mr Singh could yet prove to be the stable’s fourth Classic winner this season after Golden Horn, Star Of Seville, who took the French Oaks, and Irish Derby winner Jack Hobbs. Frankie Dettori, Mr Singh’s jockey, was preceded to the paddock before the Group Three Bahrain Trophy by a bagpiper, hired by the racecourse to mark the 30th anniversary of his arrival in Newmarket, and the race too had a processional feel, as Dettori and Mr Singh made all the running to win by two-and-a-half lengths.
It was Gosden’s fourth win in the race in the last five years, a sequence which started with Masked Marvel, the subsequent Leger winner, in 2011.
“He’s a lovely horse, growing still and beginning to fill out,” Gosden said. “He ran a lovely race [when second in the King Edward VII Stakes] at Royal Ascot, coming to the July meeting is a little close and not often the smartest move but the race suited perfectly and I thought he rode him right.
“He’s strengthening and he changes gears now. He definitely had a gear change from the three [furlong pole] on. We’ll put him away and go straight for the St Leger. He’ll hopefully be bigger and stronger then. Masked Marvel came here and won this and did the same and I think it’s the right route with this horse. He’s the only one we have for the race and I couldn’t be more thrilled with him.”
Dettori, who later completed a double on Maiden Stakes winner Salvo, remained non-committal afterwards about his apparent love of the bagpipes – “it’s half-and-half”, he said – and also a little surprised about the location of the new paving stone that bears his name on Newmarket’s Walk of Fame. “It’s right outside a lap-dancing club,” he said. “John said it found its way there by itself.” But he sees Mr Singh as a credible Classic contender. “In the spring he was just a frame and one-dimensional,” he said, “but now he’s beginning to be a class act”.
Dettori was claimed to ride Eltezam for Richard Hannon and Sheikh Joaan al-Thani’s Al Shaqab Racing in the Group Two July Stakes, which allowed Rab Havlin, a regular jockey for Gosden for nearly two decades, to partner Shalaa, the convincing 14-1 winner.
The first four winners on the card all raced at or near the front, and Havlin was clearly going best with two furlongs to run. The daunting width of the track caused Shalaa to drift left after hitting the front, but Havlin coped well to steer the colt to a one-length defeat of Steady Pace.
“He just needs to settle a bit more, but maybe that will come with racing,” Gosden said. “Frankie said the other day that he had to ride the horse that finished third in the Coventry [at Royal Ascot], but Rab knows him so well at home and they have confidence in each other.”
Jamie Spencer is often seen as a hold-up jockey but he judged the pace perfectly on Michael Bell’s Big Orange to win the Princess of Wales’s Stakes. “It was a very good ride from a very good jockey,” Bell said. “The modern word is fractions, and he got them spot on.”
Mahsoob, who faded after failing to settle fully on his first start at 12 furlongs, is out to 20-1 for the King George from a top price of 10-1 on Thursday morning. Golden Horn is now as short as 4-7 to maintain his unbeaten record at Ascot.
Lumiere, a daughter of Shamardal whose dam Screen Star won her only start by 11 lengths, was strong in the market before her own racecourse debut in the second division of the fillies’ maiden and showed considerable class to accelerate away from her field. The 6-5 favourite stretched clear under a hand ride by William Buick to win by half a dozen lengths and was immediately quoted at 20-1 by Hills for next year’s 1,000 Guineas, the same price as the Group Two-winning Shalaa.
“We were hopeful she’d be that good and William was very enthusiastic about that,” Mark Johnston, Lumiere’s trainer, said. “We’ll go home and have a think where we go next [but] looking at her pedigree there is no reason why she shouldn’t get a mile.”
