Charlie: Alliance will be just Grand going for Leger
CHARLIE Fellowes is plotting a path to the St Leger for Grand Alliance after he suffered the narrowest of defeats in Royal Ascot’s King Edward VII Stakes.
The colt was a 10-1 chance for the Group Two contest on his first start since his finishing 11th in the Derby and was beaten just a short head by Aidan O’brien’s Changingoftheguard after hanging across the track in the closing stages.
The outcome means Fellowes has again been left to wonder what might have been, as he was narrowly denied another victory at the meeting last year when Dubious Affair’s Copper Horse Stakes bid was dashed by interference.
“Initially I felt really happy with the result, to come second in a Group Two he has had to take another big step forward and I was delighted for the owners as they also bred him and everyone was really pleased,” he said.
“I’ve had a bit of time to reflect now and I can’t help but feel a little bit... perhaps crestfallen is the right word.
“That’s the second year in a row that I’ve had a horse who was legitimately the best horse in the race and didn’t win.”
Grand Alliance is not a straightforward horse and runs in a visor having shown a tendency to hang previously at Doncaster, something Fellowes suspects could be a hankering to return to the path that leads to the stables.
The St Leger is next on the agenda
I’ve had a bit of time to reflect now and I can’t help but feel a little bit... perhaps crestfallen is the right word. Charlie Fellowes
for the threeyear-old son of Churchill, who will contest either Goodwood’s Gordon Stakes or York’s Great Voltigeur en route to Town Moor.
“The owners would love to run him in the St Leger. On pedigree he has no right to be running in the Leger, but on pedigree he has no right to be running over a mile and a half,” Fellowes said.
“I think at this stage you can just completely ignore his pedigree and just look at how he races, each time he’s looked like he wants further and the other day he looked like he would have absolutely no problems.
“The plan is the Leger with one race in between and realistically there are only two options, option one is the Gordon Stakes at Goodwood, which works better timing wise but I don’t know what he would think of the track – he is the sort of horse that would either love it or hate it.
“We could also go to the Great Voltigeur at York.”