Slimline tonic for Frankie
Italian loses 7lbs to claim King George on Enable
FRANKIE DETTORI’S mission to lose seven pounds in six days was richly rewarded when he steered the favourite Enable to a thumping victory in Ascot’s King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes.
Dettori’s four previous King George wins include a five-length romp by Daylami in 1999. Enable, the 5-4 favourite, was equally impressive and her winning margin from runner-up Ulysses might have been bigger but her jockey spent the last 50 yards of a race run in a downpour in celebration.
Female of the species appear rarely on the King George roll of honour. They are special names such as Dahlia, Park Top, Time Charter and Danedream.
Enable’s performance in beating a field which, as well as Eclipse Stakes winner Ulysses, included 2016 King George winner Highland Reel prompted the bookmakers to cut her to 2-1 favourite for the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe in October.
Her trainer John Gosden, without hesitation, acknowledged the daughter of his 2011 King George winner Nathaniel as the best filly he had trained.
Dettori, who had only ridden at Enable’s weight of 8st 7lb seven times in the last seven years, said: ‘She is a superstar. I knew she was up to the task but I didn’t expect her to do that. She destroyed them.’
The Italian has had a roller-coaster of a season. The highs have largely been delivered by Enable, who provided the Italian with wins in the Oaks and Irish Oaks. But Dettori has also had to cope with a fractured shoulder which forced him out of Royal Ascot.
Such is his regard for Enable that Dettori conceded he had come back earlier than doctors advised to ride her in Ireland. He had been forced to take things easily since. But when Gosden told him of the King George plan last weekend, he had needed no incentive to survive on starvation rations.
Dettori admitted: ‘I didn’t know whether to be happy or cry. It’s a million-pound race but I knew I had to lose seven pounds. I stuck to a very strict regime. I have been surviving on fish, basically, and water. It has been boring but I wouldn’t let anyone else ride her.
‘What I’m looking forward to most is a glass of champagne. The eating will come later.’
Gosden has had outstanding fillies including 1984 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Royal Heroine, three-time group one winner Dar Re Mi and Taghrooda, who won the 2014 Oaks and King George, but the trainer, whose third favourite Jack Hobbs finished a below-par ninth, said of Enable: ‘I think she is the best filly I’ve trained.
‘It’s the style of her winning. It’s quite obvious she wants to race and not wait for things to go her way. She takes the bull by the horns.’
Enable looks like running in the Yorkshire Oaks next month at York’s Ebor meeting before being freshened up for her crack at the Arc at Chantilly on the first Sunday of October.
Opposition there could include France’s top colts — 2016 Champion
Stakes winner Almanzor and this season’s French Derby winner Brametot — as well as a rematch with Michael Stoute’s improving Ulysses and Aidan O’Brien’s Highland Reel, who struggled in the rain-softened ground and came third behind stablemate Idaho.
O’Brien said: ‘I don’t want to make excuses or take away from the winner but fast ground is Highland Reel’s thing.’