Jimmy Fortune was a gallant third on the 20-1 shot Nathra as he took the final ride of his 30-year career on Saturdayin Newmarket’s Sun Chariot Stakes. The Wexford man, a regular winner of Group One races at his peak, has been sidelined by a back injury for much of this year and finally decided to call it a day at the age of 45.
“I was really struggling to get it right,” he said of his back problems. “I just felt, when I came back in August, I couldn’t put the workload in that I needed to, to be competitive, so in a way that set me off.
“It is a bit emotional, really. Nathra is a very tough filly and could have done with a bit of juice in the ground, but she would have probably only been second, to be honest. It is a nice race to finish off in.”
Fortune’s final ride was provided by John Gosden, with whom he had a long and productive association, punctuated by the upset of a split in early 2010. Fortune had been the trainer’s main jockey for the previous five years, during which time they won the St Leger with Lucarno and the Coronation Stakes with Nannina. Fortune was also aboard Gosden’s Oasis Dream when the future stallion broke the course record in the 2002 Middle Park.
While Gosden brought in William Buick and then Frankie Dettori as his principal jockeys in the years that followed, he has continued to use Fortune and provided him with four of his 11 winners this year. Fortune got the leg-up on Nathra because Dettori was aboard her more fancied stablemate, Persuasive, who finished a length ahead in second.
Gosden said of Fortune: “He’s a superb horseman and we had some wonderful days together. He’s been leading rider at Royal Ascot, had Classic winners, Group One winners and on a wet Monday afternoon he’d give it his best in a 0-70 handicap. One thing about Jimmy, he is a wonderfully strong, genuine, honest man.”
The Sun Chariot was won by Roly Poly, providing Aidan O’Brien with his 23rd Group One success of the year and leaving him two short of the record set by the late American trainer Bobby Frankel. Roly Poly has contributed three to O’Brien’s total and the booking of Ryan Moore seems important to her, as she has been beaten on the last six occasions when someone else has been aboard.
“She’s a great filly, with a great heart. She’s tactical and tough,” said O’Brien, who could send Roly Poly and Rhododendron to the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf next month.
Of his attempt on Frankel’s record, O’Brien said: “It would be incredible for everybody but the horse always comes first. That’s the important thing. After every race, the lads [O’Brien’s employers at Coolmore] sit down and have a chat among themselves and see what race they want to pick, they have a big discussion with the people around them, make a target and we go with that.
“It’s race to race, horse to horse, the horse always comes first and we’re doing our best in every race. It’s all we can do.”
Buick made a winning comeback from injury at Ascot when he landed the Bengough Stakes on Godolphin’s Blue Point, an even-money favourite. The jockey suffered a compression fracture to a vertebra in a fall in Chicago in mid‑August.
Chris Cook’s Sunday tips
Kelso
1.35 Martila 2.05 Alphabetical Order 2.40 Beyond The Clouds 3.15 Point The Way 3.50 Boy’s On Tour (nap) 4.20 Wisty 4.50 Notnowsam 5.20 Betancourt
Uttoxeter
2.25 The Twisler 2.55 Who’s My Jockey 3.30 Templeross 4.00 Winterfell 4.35 Audacious Plan (nb) 5.05 Solway Trigger 5.35 Baraboy
