Frankie bids to be top of the Turf
IN sun-kissed California, Fanny Logan can take a massive step out of the enormous shadow cast by illustrious stablemate Enable with victory in the $2million Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf.
Dual Arc winner Enable, winding down for the winter in trainer John Gosden’s Newmarket stable, is among a host of big names like Battaash, Too Darn Hot, Magical and Waldgeist who might have originally been expected to represented Europe at this $28million racing bash.
But that has handed an opportunity to a team that — Aidan O’Brien-trained Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck apart — is lacking big names.
The good news is that quality is also rationed in the US team.
That means in the land of opportunity a clutch of hopefuls have a chance to elevate their reputations at a track where Europe has never left without a winner in nine stagings of the Breeders’ Cup.
Fanny Logan faces one of the home-based stars — Chad Browntrained Sistercharlie, winner of last year’s Filly & Mare Turf — but the way she has won her last four races means she should not be underestimated.
Frankie Dettori’s mount is now fulfilling the expectations Gosden had at the start of the season.
Gosden (above), who started his training career at Santa Anita, said: ‘If you go back to the Cheshire Oaks (when she was third at Chester in May), I put Frankie on her and Rab Havlin was on the winner Mehdaayih. So you can see my thinking then.
‘She ran too free that day and in the mile-and-a-half Ribblesdale Stakes at Royal Ascot she didn’t stay. I have dropped her back in trip and put the hood on her and she has been a revelation.
‘On the Santa Anita Turf course you need luck in running.
‘Stall 12 of 12 will not be a lot of help. You can pay the price but if they go a good pace she can slot in.’
Speed is the key in the Mile race and the worry with Europe’s No 1 hope on paper, Aidan O’Brien’s Circus Maximus, is that he might get done for toe off the final bend when the field flies home. That might suit Richard Fahey’s Jersey Stakes winner Space Traveller, who could crown a huge season for jockey Danny Tudhope. The big plus for Anthony Van Dyck in the Turf is that he has been kept fresh for the race as he bids to emulate High Chaparral, the only previous Derby winner to land this race.
O’Brien said: ‘The trip, draw and track look right for him.’
Stablemate Mount Everest looks likely to make the race a stamina test to put it to the big US hope, Arlington Million winner Bricks And Mortar,
The Chad Brown-trained son of Giant’s Causeway has won his last six races, but the mile-and-a-half Turf is two furlongs further than he has faced before.
That set-up of a race won 15 times this century by European runners could play into the hands of Charlie Appleby-trained Sheema Classic winner Old Persian, with jockey William Buick able to pick up the pieces late on.