CRACKSMAN ON TARGET
CRACKSMAN, the highest rated horse in Europe last year, heads for the Prix Ganay this spring as a pipe-opener to a campaign that will culminate with Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in October.
The four-year-old’s owner Anthony Oppenheimer has set out a potential campaign for his star, which includes Royal Ascot.
“I would think after the Ganay the Tattersalls Gold Cup would be a reasonable possibility, before the Prince of Wales’s at Royal Ascot,” Oppenheimer said.
Racing fans will be hoping to see a clash this year between Cracksman and stablemate Enable, the multiple Group One-winning filly who romped home in the Arc last season.
Despite defeats in the Investec Derby at Epsom and the Irish one at the Curragh, Cracksman demolished a high-class field at Ascot in the Champion Stakes last October on soft ground. “Heading to Ascot last year, I was obviously hoping he’d win,” said Oppenheimer. “But I didn’t think he’d be able to win as easily as he did.
“He really took off. Up at York on better ground in the Great Voltigeur he was fine. I think he can handle any going as long as it’s not firm.”
John Gosden has stated that if all goes well his stable stars will meet in the Arc, but not before, leaving 10-furlong specialist Cracksman heading for Royal Ascot.
Oppenheimer said: “I don’t think the Coronation Cup is the race for him. If it came up really soft we might consider it, but I don’t think Epsom suits him.
“We’ve seen him twice coming down the hill and it is a bit like when a human runs downhill, you keep getting faster and it is quite worrying.
“He finds doing that, with his action, quite a problem, so we are likely to give that race a miss.”