World class Lion roars past rivals to seal success at York

A MEDIOCRE Flat season, crying out for a defining display, received it in style as Roaring Lion dismissed the classiest line-up assembled on a British racecourse this summer in York’s Juddmonte International. He won by three and a quarter lengths against a field which boasted seven rivals with 11 Group One victories between them. They included 2,000 Guineas winner Saxon Warrior, Irish Derby victor Latrobe and Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow. Also in the field was oddson favourite Poet’s Word, currently rated the world’s second best horse behind Australian supermare Winx after wins in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot. But none could live with Roaring Lion. Runner-up Poet’s Word did not enjoy the cleanest of runs but it would be folly to suggest it made the difference between winning and losing as jockey Oisín Murphy powered home the John Gosden-trained 3/1 winner in the final furlong. When Roaring Lion landed the Dante Stakes at York back in May to set up a challenge for the Derby, Gosden (right) felt that immaturity was hampering the development of the colt. It had cost him the Racing Post Trophy as a two-yearold at Doncaster, when Aidan O’Brien’s Saxon Warrior snatched victory. Any chance behind the same horse in the 2,000 Guineas once more evaporated as he again hung left-handed. But after a non-staying third in the mile-and-ahalf Derby behind Masar, Roaring Lion has run straight as an arrow to win both the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown and the International Stakes. No longer a playboy, more a boy wonder. ‘Today he has shown a clean pair of heels. He has just got better and better and this was not a fluke,’ said Gosden.