Sixties Song racing for Latin pride

THE team surrounding Sixties Song know the scale of the task facing them when the colt makes history in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on Saturday. The best horse in South America will be the first horse trained on that continent to race in Britain. Facing him will be 2016 winner Highland Reel, Eclipse Stakes scorer Ulysses and, almost certainly, John Gosden’s dual Oaks winner Enable, new 13-8 favourite after the strongest hint so far she will run with Frankie Dettori riding. The line-up will make it the best race so far this season. Vet Carlos Cambas, who accompanied the Alfredo Gaitan Dassie-trained four-year-old on the 14-hour flight from Buenos Aires to Stansted, said: ‘We are realists... but sometimes the team from the second division can beat the side from the first!’ Sixties Song’s colours include the yellow and blue of Boca Juniors, the club followed by Gaitan Dassie (right) and partowner Alberto Roberti. As a boy, Gaitan Dassie became a jockey when rejected by the military for being too small. Now one of Argentina’s top trainers with 130 horses at his base at San Isidro racetrack, he has guided Sixties Song to success in two of South America’s biggest races, the Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini and Gran Premio Latinoamericano. For the past six weeks, every morning at 4am, Gaitan Dassie has taken Sixties Song to Palermo racetrack in Buenos Aires where he has worked alone right-handed under floodlights, something alien to Argentine horses, to prepare him for Ascot. The 50-1 shot will also be facing an undulating track for the first time. Gaitan Dassie’s son and assistant Nico said: ‘We are delighted to be here. It will be tough but we are optimistic about the result. There is a lot of interest at home. The race will be shown on TV and a lot of people are waiting to see it.’