Dettori takes Ascot Champions Day double
FRANKIE Dettori stole the show with a British Champions Day double at Ascot on Saturday as master Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien celebrated a recordequalling 25th top-tier winner of the season.
Dettori (pictured, AFP) added another chapter to his golden year when the flamboyant Italian punched home 13-8 favourite Cracksman in the Champion Stakes to follow up his success on Persuasive in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
He was all smiles as he accepted the race trophy after the QE2 from Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s 91-year-old monarch and avid racing fan braving the blustery conditions at Britain’s richest race day.
Both Cracksman, who won by seven lengths from Poet’s Word, and Persuasive were trained by John Gosden, who with Dettori on board won this month’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Chantilly in France with Enable.
“Frankie rode him positively and beautifully in the straight,” Gosden said. “We said to come wide and he has done it well. You can see why I didn’t want him to run [in the Arc] – I don’t know, him and Enable would be fun. There’s not much between them, is there?”
Dettori, winning his first rst Champion Sta kes, added: “He put a good f ield to bed in t he manner of a champion. “He has been workingk ing so sweetly and it’s fa ntastic. c.
“He’s a true champion and he deser ves it – t here’s a lott more to come from him.”
Cracksman is a son of the imperious Frankel who rounded ounded off his brilliant career in the Champion Stakes five years ars ago.
Frankel was named in honour of the late American trainer Bobby Frankel, whose record of 25 Grade rade One wins in a year was matched by O’Brien when the master Irish handler ler sent out Hydrangea to take the Fillies And Mares race earlier in the day.
O’Brien missed out on claiming the record outright when Churchill had to settle for third behind Persuasive in the mile feature and Highland Reel filling the same position behind Cracksman in the day’s centrepiece.
O O’BrienBrien t y pica lly declined to ta ke credit for t he achievement, instead praising his team at his Ballydoyle stables in Irela nd supported by t he might y Coolmore breed ing operation.
“It’s a credit for everyone, everyone puts in a lot of hard work, I’m so grateful to be a little link in the chain,” the 48-year-old Irishman told ITV. Hydrangea’s jockey Ryan Moore added: “This year’s been remarkable. This filly has been on the go all year and has been getting better and better. I’m delighted for her and delighted for Aidan. Aidan.”
Frankel’s re record has stood for 14 years, with O’Brien twice getting close, whe when he trained 23 winners in 2001 an and 2008.
O’Brien will try and claim it as his own next weekend when he has Group One contenders in England and France.
His rich harvest of winners in 2017 has included the winners of four of thet five English classics with ChurchillChu and Winter annexing the 2,0 2,000 and 1,000 Guineas, Wings of Eag Eagles winning the Epsom Derby and Ca Capri, his Irish Derby hero, scraping hom home in the St Leger.