‘Enable will win the Arc’
SUPERLATIVES: GOSDEN, DETTORI RAVE ABOUT FILLY AFTER KING GEORGE VICTORY
Stablemate Shutter Speed in line for Nassau victory at Goodwood.
Frankie Dettori said “she’s right up there with Golden Horn”, while John Gosden reckons she is the best of a celebrated bunch of fillies he has trained over four decades, so I hope you took my advice and snapped up 7-1 about Enable for the Arc before she annihilated the opposition in the £1.15-million King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot last Saturday.
Enable would not have had the speed to emulate Golden Horn and win an Eclipse, but she is the less complicated of the two and, whereas the Derby winner was taken out on the morning of the King George because of the soft ground, the more adaptable dual Oaks heroine has now shown she is as effective in a mud bath as she was on fast going at Epsom.
Dettori predicted on the plane on the way back from The Curragh after Enable’s impressive triumph in the Irish Oaks that “she’ll win the Arc”, and following the 4.50-length thumping she handed out to the older horses at Ascot, is a best-priced 2-1 for Europe’s richest race at Chantilly on the first Sunday in October.
Having successfully followed in the footsteps of her sire, Nathaniel, Gosden’s 2011 King George winner, Enable now moves above the likes of Royal Heroine, Taghrooda, The Fugue and Dar Re Mi in her trainer’s pecking order of fillies.
Gosden, who plans to take in the Yorkshire Oaks en route to France provided Enable recovers from her Ascot exertions in time, said: “Even allowing for the fact that we had the 7kg sex and weight-for-age allowance, Enable is looking a very special filly.
“I thought it would be a long time until we saw the likes of Pawneese and Dahlia again, but Enable is right up there with those glamour gals, and she exploded when Frankie gave her the office in the straight.”
Dettori, who shed 3.5kg in six days to do the 54kg on Enable, said: “She is a superstar and I’ve not had a feeling like that since Golden Horn, so, hopefully, she can emulate him and win the Arc.”
In this column, we have been lauding the middle-distance classic fillies all season, and, while it’s true there was no Derby winner in the field and the globetrotting Highland Reel never turns up in a quagmire, one cannot underestimate the exciting potential of Enable, whose rapid rise to stardom comes as a timely pointer to the chance of stablemate SHUTTER SPEED in tomorrow’s Group 1 Nassau Stakes, Day 3 of the popular Glorious Goodwood meeting.
Shutter Speed beat Enable in a small conditions race at Newbury in May, but, though she then won her classic trial, the Group 3 Musidora Stakes at York, only her class got her home in atrocious conditions on the Knavesmire, and concerns Gosden had about her stamina were proved founded when she subsequently ran out of petrol in the last 200m in the Prix de Diane at Chantilly.
Granted, this looks a hot race, with dual 1000 Guineas heroine Winter, who followed up in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, justifiably a warm favourite, not to mention last year’s Breeders Cup Filly & Mares Turf winner Queen’s Trust, the muchimproved Nezwaah, Godolphin’s classy filly Wuheida and Shutter Speed’s illustrious stable companion So Mi Dar.
Wuheida, who returned from injury to run second to Roly Poly in the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket last month - a formline advertised when the winner went in again in Sunday’s Prix Rothschild at Deauville – could be the value at double-figure odds, but I’m sticking with Shutter Speed.
Godolphin make no secret their banker for Goodwood is RIBCHESTER in the £1-million Qatar Sussex Stakes today, and, like Enable, his ability to handle all types of underfoot conditions is a huge plus with Britain’s summer weather being so unpredictable.
Ribchester was even more impressive in the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot than he had been in the Lockinge at Newbury, and, having finished an unlucky third in this race 12 months ago, he is proven on a track that takes some knowing.
In contrast, Goodwood’s ups and downs will be new territory to both French raider Zelzal, who was disappointing on his seasonal debut, and Churchill, Coolmore’s dual 2000 Guineas winner, who then melted in the heat when only fourth behind Barney Roy at Royal Ascot and needs to redeem his tarnished reputation.
Mike Smith, one of the legends in American jockeys’ rooms, is flying over to ride HAPPY LIKE A FOOL for Wes Ward in the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes, and, though no match for Heartache at Royal Ascot, this filly still looks top-drawer material and can give Ward his first winner with his first runner on this course.
Finding winners at this fiveday summer festival gets tougher as the week progresses, but FRONTIERSMAN has rock-solid claims in Friday’s opener, the Group 3 Glorious Stakes, while PROFITABLE, who bumped into the flying Lady Aurelia in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot, can go one better and upset favourite Battaash in the Day four feature, the King George Stakes.
For the £150,000 Betfred Mile I’d recommend small bets on GM HOPKINS BELGIAN BILL.