Adam Kirby has lost the ride on Postponed in Saturday’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the horse will now be ridden by Andrea Atzeni. No reason has been offered for the switch but it may be that Kirby, who has yet to win on Postponed in three attempts, is suffering the consequences of causing controversy when he last partnered the horse in the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot.
“Sheikh Mohammed Obaid has decided to give the ride to Andrea, as he won on the horse last year,” said Luca Cumani, trainer of Postponed, on Wednesday night. Asked if this was a reaction to what happened in the Hardwicke, Cumani said: “I don’t know, I didn’t ask that.” Kirby did not return phone messages but the trainer described him as being “clearly not overjoyed”.
Kirby succeeded Atzeni as the Sheikh’s retained jockey at the end of last year and it is Cumani’s understanding that Kirby will continue to ride the Sheikh’s other horses. Indeed he is booked to ride the Sheikh’s Handbell at Wolverhampton on Thursday. But he is expected to be at Newmarket on Saturday, where he has the prospect of at least one ride for Godolphin.
After the Hardwicke Kirby was accused of improper riding by John Gosden, whose Eagle Top raced just inside Postponed. “In the early part of the race [Kirby] had the reins short and the horse’s head angled hard right, straight into our horse. That’s not clean riding and it doesn’t belong anywhere in British racing,” Gosden said.
The raceday stewards took no action and Cumani has since defended his jockey, saying that both Kirby and Frankie Dettori, on Eagle Top, were “a bit at fault” in fighting over a position they both wanted to occupy, which may have cost them all the chance of reeling in the eventual winner, Snow Sky. Dettori has since said the incident led to a falling out between him and Kirby.
Switching jockeys on Postponed means there is no chance of tension between Kirby and Dettori affecting Saturday’s race, in which the Italian will ride the Gosden-trained Golden Horn, the unbeaten Derby winner. Eagle Top will also be running and it appears that Gosden will need to find a new jockey for him. He had hoped to use William Buick but Buick is retained by Godolphin, whose Romsdal, also Gosden-trained, is expected to be left in the race at Thursday’s final entry stage.
Telescope, who had been a 14-1 shot for the King George, will miss the race owing to an unspecified problem. His owning syndicate, Highclere, tweeted early yesterday that the horse “has had a minor setback and will not be able to participate”.
“It’s frustrating for everybody involved, obviously,” said Alex Smith, representing Highclere. “It is only a minor setback and doesn’t look anything serious. It’s just come at the wrong moment, unfortunately. It’s disappointing for his owners, who had been building up for a big day, but he’ll be fine.”
Smith expressed the hope that Telescope might be back in action as soon as next month but offered no further detail on the source of the problem. Telescope was beaten by only Taghrooda in last year’s King George but 2015 has been frustrating for his connections, as he was beaten at odds of 8-13 in his reappearance run and was only sixth as favourite for the Hardwicke when last seen.
The final Classic of the British season sustained a mild knock to its reputation when only 29 entries were revealed to have been made for September’s St Leger, of which 16 are trained by Aidan O’Brien. The favourite is William Haggas’s Storm The Stars, placed in two Derbys, on 6-1.
