Willing and Enable to beat big boys

IT takes a filly of immense talent to beat the boys at the top level and Enable showed she is exactly that in storming to a decisive success in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot.

Arriving on the back of wins in both the English and Irish Oaks, the daughter of Nathaniel had already earned her place at the top of the pecking order among her own sex - and age group - but now it was a question of if she could replicate that against a field of proven Group One colts and older horses.

Having strived all week to make sure he was able to do the weight aboard the John Gosden-trained Classic heroine, Frankie Dettori was in no mood to let his efforts go to waste, and so it proved with the pair joining forces to dominate their rivals in the mile-and-a-half Group One prize with a performance of sheer brilliance.

After racing just off the pace which was cut out by stablemate Maverick Wave, the 5-4 favourite was sent on to win her race approaching the two-furlong pole, much to the delight of the most of the rain-soaked crowd in the packed stands.

Although Ulysses did his best to lay down a serious challenge, he could not match the finishing effort of the winner, with Enable striding to victory by four and a half lengths from this year’s Eclipse hero, to emulate her sire’s 2011 victory.

Hailing Enable as the best filly he has trained, Gosden said: “I think Frankie decided she is travelling and that I stay and I am not going to take her back and get in trouble. He rode her beautifully.

“Ulysses made a wonderful run at her and he has won an Eclipse, but she is a very smart filly. All in all she’s as good a filly as I’ve ever trained - Taghrooda was brilliant to win this and she’s following Dahlia and Pawneese.

“I am great believer in this race being a meeting of the generations and she has proved it.

“She would have won on good ground. I love great fillies to train, they are just a pleasure to be around on the whole. She just takes the race by the horns.

“The Yorkshire Oaks is where we want to go and then freshen up and see where we are about a race on October 1 (Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe).”

While the past week has been a mentally draining one for Dettori, it was a sacrifice he was more than willing to take for a filly he described as a “superstar”.

He said: “I’m thrilled.”