IT’S POET’S DAY
Record-breaker Stoute has the final word
THE narrow win for Poet’s Word against stablemate Crystal Ocean in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes was more evidence that recent attempts to write an obituary on the career of trainer Sir Michael Stoute have been mightily premature.
The betting may have got it wrong — the James Doyle-ridden 7-4 winner beat the 6-4 favourite ridden by William Buick by a neck.
But there can be no debate about the significance of the result.
Poet’s Word was a record sixth win in the Qipco-sponsored race for Stoute, one clear of the late Dick Hern and Godolphin’s Saeed Bin Suroor.
Stoute’s first was supplied by the Walter Swinburn-ridden Shergar back in 1981, 37 years ago and a galloping legend before plenty who attended the Berkshire track yesterday were born.
The fifth had been the Olivier Peslier-ridden Harbinger in 2010 and there have been seasons since when it looked like that might have been Stoute’s last.
Victories at Group One level were absent from his record in 2011 and 2012 and, while he bounced back in 2015 and 2016, the 10-time champion trainer was spared another top-level race blank only with solitary wins in America in 2015 and 2016.
Group One successes are the currency of a Premier League trainer. Without them, he or she can soon slip perilously close to the relegation zone.
It may not have been such a dramatic slump in fortunes as the one endured and survived by Stoute’s old rival Sir Henry Cecil but there were nudges and winks.
Faced with the steamroller power of Ireland’s Aidan O’Brien, Newmarket neighbour John Gosden and powerful younger rivals William Haggas, Mark Johnston, Richard Hannon and Richard Fahey, questions were asked whether the reign of 72-year-old Stoute was coming to an end. Now on the back of two Group One wins for Ulysses last year and four wins at Royal Ascot last month, including one with Poet’s Word, which made Stoute the most successful trainer in the meeting’s history with 79 successes, came yesterday’s success.
Stoute said: ‘I wasn’t as pessimistic as some. If you look closely, we were having Group One winners abroad and were hanging in there.
‘I’ll never be champion trainer again. I don’t have the numbers and the quality has deteriorated slightly but we’re still making a few runs. I’ll keep going.’
O’Brien and Gosden fielded runners in the King George but the 2018 version turned out to be a one-trainer race.
There was a nine-length gap between runner-up Crystal Ocean and third-placed Gosden-trained filly Coronet.
The £1.25million race was over as soon as it began for Desert Encounter, who blew the start, and it was O’Brien’s Rostropovich, closely followed by Salouen, who set a strong pace with Crystal Ocean sat just behind.
When Buick set sail for home and poached a three-length lead, it looked a winning move. But Doyle, who had settled Poet’s Word at the back of the seven-runner line-up, unleashed his mount in pursuit and got the winner to the front 75 yards out.
Stoute added: ‘It’s a pity there was a loser. They are two such admirable horses.
‘This is a great mid-season race and we have been lucky enough to do very well in it.’
Absent was Gosden’s Cracksman. The rain he needed to soften the ground evaded Ascot.
Poet’s Word has no such worries. Future races for him could be the International Stakes at York next month and the Breeders’ Cup Turf in the US in November.