Not all the gamblers at Santa Anita this weekend will be in the track’s immense grandstand. Frankie Dettori has five booked rides on Friday and Saturday and four have been handed double-figure draws on the tight turf track. “It’s in the lap of the gods,” he said. “You’ve got to ride as it comes, perhaps take chances and hopefully it comes off.”
Dettori has ridden only 64 winners in Britain in 2019, far removed from the 233 that earned him the first of his three jockeys’ championships in 1994. It has not been about the numbers for Dettori for many years and he is in no doubt that 2019, in which he has set a personal record for Group One winners with 19 so far, is the best season of his exceptional career.
That brings expectation too, however, and while he is widely recognised as the finest big-race rider in the business, Dettori cannot work miracles. To deliver aboard horses such as A’Ali, drawn 10 of 12 in the Juvenile Turf Sprint on Friday, and Fanny Logan, 14 of 14 in the Filly & Mare Turf on Saturday, he will need to draw on all his guile and experience, while also hoping for a big slice of luck.
“It’s like Chester,” Dettori said. “How many horses win from 10 in sprints? Not very many and it’s the same scenario here. It’s not about how fast he jumps out of the gates because if he jumps too fast there’s a possibility that he’ll go too wide. In the turf sprints, you can’t go six wide because you can’t win so sometimes you’ve got to take a chance and if it comes off, it comes off.”
A’Ali remains one of the market leaders for the Juvenile Turf Sprint at around 4-1 despite his tough draw and will go to post as the best horse in the race on ratings, having won three Group Two events so far this season, including the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Prix Robert Papin in France.
“From day one that I sat on him, I thought he’d be ideal [for this race],” Dettori said. “He’s got a tendency to go left, he’s small, neat, compact. The draw doesn’t help but on ability, I definitely think he’s good enough.”
Fanny Logan is an outsider for her race on Saturday but comes into it on the back of four successive wins since John Gosden decided to apply a hood after a disappointing run at Royal Ascot. “She’s done nothing but improve since she’s had the hood on and won four in a row now. She’s an outsider and the race looks tough but she deserves to take her chance. She hasn’t stopped improving, so who knows?”
Dettori will also be aboard Aidan O’Brien’s Etoile (drawn 14 of 14 in the Juvenile Fillies’ Turf) and Hey Gaman for James Tate from 13 of 13 in the Mile. The American sprinter Imprimis, in the Turf Sprint, is Dettori’s only inside draw all weekend in stall three.
A’Ali is trained by Simon Crisford, whose long association with Dettori stretches back to the 1990s when he was the racing manager for the Godolphin operation and Dettori was its No 1 jockey. Gosden, though, has supplied the majority of the rider’s big-race winners this year and will do so again in 2020.
“He likes being very involved in the stable,” Gosden said. “He’s very fulfilled, enjoying everything. I think everything came so fast when he was young that he didn’t stop to appreciate it, but everybody’s like that when they’re young.
“Let’s face it, he’s not a man you find on a wet afternoon at Brighton, he very much keeps himself for the bigger meetings. At his age, he doesn’t want to flog up and down the country, wearing himself. He’s a wonderful Italian diva and very much still at the zenith of his career.”
Thursday’s best bets
Horseboxes from Ballydoyle are a very rare sight at Lingfield in any other month than May, when O’Brien generally sends a runner to the Derby Trial and, as often as not, it turns out to be the winner. In the other 11 months of the year, O’Brien has had just three runners since 2003 until Thursday, when he has four horses declared to run at the Surrey track, including a pair of runners in the Listed River Eden Fillies’ Stakes.
The apparent reason for his sudden interest in Lingfield is that this card includes two qualifiers for All-Weather Finals day next year. Delphinia (3.35) is odds-on and rightly so after a second-place finish in the Filly & Mares Stakes at Ascot on Champions Day, but Coral Beach faces much stronger competition in the Fleur De Lys Stakes and could struggle to cope with Preening (2.30), who posted a good time when second in a Group Three at Doncaster last time out.
Lethal Lunch (1.55) put up one of the best performances of his career last time out and is worth supporting at around 4-1 on the same card, while the excellent hurdler Black Op (2.20) has had a wind op since his last start and could show the benefit in a very warm beginners’ chase at Stratford. Good Tidings (6.40) and Zafaranah (5.55) look best later on at Kempton and Chelmsford City, respectively.
Lingfield Park 12.50 Hindaam 1.20 Cranberry 1.55 Lethal Lunch (nap) 2.30 Preening 3.00 King Of Athens 3.35 Delphinia 4.05 Sonnet Rose
Stratford-on-Avon 1.45 Wayfinder 2.20 Black Op 2.50 Ballyellis 3.25 Bennys King 3.55 Alnadam 4.25 De Forgotten One
Kempton Park 4.40 Jaganory 5.10 Dancing Jo 5.40 Murraymint 6.10 Secret Acquisition 6.40 Good Tidings (nb) 7.10 Dawaaween 7.40 Zamani 8.10 My Town Chicago
Chelmsford City 4.55 Aiguillette 5.25 Tomily 5.55 Zafaranah 6.25 Skerryvore 6.55 It Had To Be You 7.25 Emojie 7.55 Mohareb 8.25 Circle Of Stars
Tips by Greg Wood
