DETTORI AND GOSDEN TOO DARN HOT FOR RIVALS S.Korean golfer’s burnout
LEGENDARY jockey Frankie Dettori and trainer John Gosden’s extraordinary run continued on Wednesday as Too Darn Hot’s victory in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood gave them their ninth Group 1 success in the past two months.
The winner — owned by Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who was not present as he is attending a music festival abroad — eased home from major rival Circus Maximus.
For 48-year-old Dettori — who has teamed up with Gosden to land three major races in the past five days with Enable and Stradivarius winning the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Goodwood Cup — it is his 11th Group 1 triumph of the campaign and puts him firmly on course to beat his personal record haul of 16 achieved in 2001.
Too Darn Hot has also bounced back after a disappointing start to the season with successive Group 1 victories — the Sussex seeing him gain revenge over Circus Maximus who had put him in his place in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot in June.
“He is a wonderful horse who deserves this. We all, knew he had it in him to win a race as prestigious as this,” Dettori said.
The jockey, though, reserved the warmest words for Gosden, who handed the Italian a lifeline when his career was in the doldrums after he received a six-month ban for doping in 2012.
“I am so lucky I work for him,” Dettori said.
“They are amazing horses, which are trained by a fantastic genius of a trainer. I have not enough superlatives for him.” INBEE Park says she suffered from burnout and confessed she has doubts over whether she will be defending her Olympic title in Tokyo on the eve of the Women’s British Open.
The 31-year-old South Korean was once the dominant force in women’s golf, winning six of her seven majors between 2013 and 2015, but she has now slipped to No.5 in the world rankings and has cut her schedule back.
Despite her struggles Park, who finished in a tie for eighth at last week’s Evian Championship, is hoping to find form at the final major of the season which started in Woburn last night.
The last time the Open was at Woburn was in 2016, when Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn claimed the trophy. Park missed the event to protect an injury in the run-up to the Rio Olympics.
Lexi Thompson is the leading American but comes into the British Open after an unsettling succession of events.
The 24-year-old missed the cut at the Evian Championship, another of the five women’s majors, and then upset her colleagues by mislaying her passport.
In the subsequent confusion the van driver taking the clubs across the Channel missed his connection and, as a result, many players did not have their clubs for an early practice round.
“I have apologised and I wish it had never happened,” said Thompson. “I was freaking out when I discovered what I had done and didn’t realise I was going to cause such a delay. I am sorry for that.”
US Open winner Hannah Green and Minjee Lee lead the Australian hopes.