The Doncaster Cup celebrated its 250th anniversary here on Friday, and there can have been few finishes in its long history to match the struggle between Sheikhzayedroad and Quest For More that unfolded at the end of two-and-a-quarter miles.
For much of the way down the long home straight, it seemed that the front-running Quest For More was about to add another Group Two success to his recent win at York, but Sheikhzayedroad joined the leader with a furlong to run and the two horses fought over every inch of ground all the way to the line. Sheikhzayedroad was a nose in front at the post, and a winner for only the second time since a Grade One victory at Woodbine in Toronto in the summer of 2014.
“We absolutely love him to bits at home,” David Simcock, who trains the seven-year-old, said afterwards. “He is a model of consistency, is very tough and is just an old warrior.
“He only runs about six times a year now and he might run once more this year, possibly in Canada or at Ascot [in the Long Distance Cup]. We keep him fresh, he takes no training and is as slow as a hearse at home.”
A return to five furlongs saw Ardad recapture the form that made him a winner at Royal Ascot in June, as he was produced with a well-timed run by Frankie Dettori to win the Group Two Flying Childers Stakes by three-quarters of a length.
John Gosden’s runner took the Windsor Castle Stakes at Ascot, but then proved disappointing in two subsequent starts over an extra furlong in Newmarket’s July Stakes and the Gimcrack at York.
“The main thing with this horse is the trip,” Bruce Raymond, representing Ardad’s owner Abdullah Saeed Al Naboodah, said afterwards. “I don’t think he will ever get six furlongs as he doesn’t see it out well. We’ve tried six furlongs twice and I think he is much better at five.”
The Cornwallis Stakes at Newmarket in October is now an obvious target for Ardad. “That may suit him because he could get easier ground,” Raymond said. “Soft ground is a big advantage for him.”
Nemoralia was odds-on at 4-6 to win the Sceptre Stakes with Lumiere, last year’s Cheveley Stakes winner, next in the betting, but both were unplaced behind Roger Varian’s improving four-year-old Spangled.
The stewards inquired into the performance of Nemoralia, who was just behind the leaders two furlongs out but dropped away rapidly to finish last of the seven runners, 10 lengths adrift of the sixth horse home. Jeremy Noseda, her trainer, told the panel that he could offer no explanation for her disappointing run, while a vet reported that a post-race examination of the filly had also failed to reveal anything unusual.
At Sandown, Kieren Fox escaped dazed but otherwise unhurt when he was unseated in the closing stages of a five-furlong sprint after a golf ball kicked up by another runner startled his horse.
We think it was a golf ball that got in the way at @SandownPark in the 1.45pm? pic.twitter.com/hZFSpkCUKi
— Racing UK (@Racing_UK) September 9, 2016
Fox was riding Luxford in the opening race on the card, and had no chance to stay in the saddle when the filly jinked violently right as the golf ball, which had first bounced off the helmet of fellow jockey Charlie Bennett, flew across the course.
“The winner [Big Lachie] has flicked up the golf ball which has then appeared to hit the helmet of Charlie Bennett in behind and ricocheted off him across Luxford,” Andrew Cooper, Sandown’s clerk of the course, said afterwards.
“Obviously this is something we never like to see happen and in my 20 years of clerking we’ve only had three or four examples of this.
“I’m satisfied that we take all reasonable precautions to make sure that the course is as clear as we can make it, but we accept that there will be some balls buried in the grass. The five-furlong course is situated alongside a golf course and the area in question is near a par three hole.
“We have a 14-strong team that walk the course, and other parts of the track, looking for golf balls as golf is played here year round other than on days when racing takes place. From my experience, even with that many people doing checks on the course, unless they see or tread on a golf ball there will be golf balls buried on the course. It is inevitable.”
