Dettori still has full confidence in Enable despite defeat

Frankie Dettori is confident Enable’s brilliant ability remains fully intact despite her comeback defeat at Sandown.

John Gosden’s dual Arc heroine has been kept in training with the chief objective of becoming the first ever three-time winner of Europe’s premier middledistance contest, having come up a little short in her hat-trick bid last October.

Enable was a warm order to successfully defend her crown in the Coral-Eclipse on Sunday – and while she was ultimately unable to reel in the front-running Ghaiyyath, Dettori is expecting her to improve before a tilt at the King George this month and later, a return to France.

“Ghaiyyath is definitely very good – in a small field with an easy lead, he’s pretty much untouchable,” the popular Italian told the Nick

Luck Daily Podcast.

“I think it was a great performance, to beat two very good horses like Enable and Japan. Over a mile and a quarter, I would not be confident (of reversing the form) – (but) obviously over a mile and a half, yes.”

Dettori feels his decision not to put Enable into the heat of battle too early at Sandown will pay off in the long run.

He added: “I didn’t want to be too aggressive on Enable after a nine-month layoff. I kind of looked after her for the first bit of the race – next time, if I take him (Ghaiyyath) on, I’ll be a bit closer and make a race of it.

“The King George and the Arc have always been her targets, so I didn’t want to bottom her first time out against a very fit, good horse.

“If I got into a race too early with horses a lot fitter than me, instead of bringing her forward, she could have taken a knock backwards.

“I had to be careful, to make sure she came out of the race in good fettle and bouncing, instead of getting a knockout punch from a good horse and then not recover from it.

“She’s six now, so it’s a lot harder to keep her motivated in the morning.

“She’s never been a good workhorse, but even less so nowadays, because she’s been going up and down those gallops for the last four years.

“We did a racecourse gallop; now we’ve got the Eclipse under our belt, and now we can start thinking of being really competitive in a King George – and then all roads lead to Longchamp again.”