Dettori leads Enable to historic victory
Filly follows up Arc win with Breeders’ Cup success Jockey also triumphs on Stoute-trained Expert Eye
RACING
Enable capped a terrific weekend for British-trained horses, and Frankie Dettori in particular, at the 35th Breeders’ Cup when she became the first Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner to double up in racing’s world championships in the same season last night.
John Gosden’s filly already had a share of racing history as one of only eight horses to win two Prix de l’Arc de Triomphes, but she added a chapter of her own to the record books with a bravura performance under the twin spires of Churchill Downs.
Winning in Paris and America within a month had proved a bridge too far for Dancing Brave, also owned by Khalid Abdullah, and the first of eight Arc winners to try it. But Enable put a problematic season, the bulk of which saw her confined to light exercise, behind her to beat Magical three-quarters of a length in a wonderful race.
With Dettori determined to go wide for the better ground, Ryan Moore was able to slip through on the inside swinging into the straight and the pair duelled their way up the stretch almost under the stands rail with Enable finally getting on top in the final 100 yards, a long way clear of the third.
Dettori, whose 100th ride at the meeting and 14th winner it was, has always said he has a strong emotional attachment to Abdullah’s homebred filly because she has the ability to take him places other horses cannot.
Yesterday she delivered him back to cloud nine and there was no shortage of celebration with the jockey plucking the winner’s flower garland and using it as a source of confetti for Enable, who now joins the pantheon of alltime-great race mares.
Gosden was more relieved than ecstatic. He said: “It was a big ask. It’s been a difficult year for her and it was a tough race. Frankie was determined to go wide and Ryan slipped up his inside and I was afraid because she was the one to beat. It was a wonderful stretch, two great fillies and two great jockeys. She’s very brave to have got here.”
It was the last ride of the year for the jockey, who relishes the carnival of the Breeders Cup. “I’m on holiday,” he said afterwards. “Going wide won me the race. Her legs were spinning on the inside round the first bend and once she was on the better ground she started breathing and moving well.”
He added: “They went fast for a mile and a half on that ground. I knew they couldn’t keep it up. I thought the only horse which could give her a race was Magical, a duck on water in that ground. I was trying to be patient but Ryan [Moore] took me on early and I thought ‘it’s a punch-up now.’
“I got half a length up and saw Ryan in difficulty but he was like a wasp – not going away.”
It was a delighted Dettori’s second winner of the day from just three rides after Expert Eye won the Mile for Sir Michael Stoute.
Given a patient ride, the colt took a while to hit his stride in the straight but when he finally found some traction he ran down five horses inside the last furlong and eventually beat Catapult half a length and with a bit more to spare.
When Expert Eye won the Vintage Stakes at Goodwood last year, he looked like a superstar in the making. But an aversion to the stalls, which first came to light in last year’s Dewhurst, held up his ascent and it was not until Ascot’s Jersey Stakes that the show was back on the road.
However, he finally landed a big one and a race long on his owner-breeder Abdullah’s target list. “When I turned into the straight I asked him to pick up and the response was not there,” said Dettori. “For 100 yards I thought I was going to be a good fifth but then I could see the leaders stopping and he got down and sprinted home. It was despair to joy in 100 yards.”
It was Stoute’s eighth Breeders’ Cup winner and he rarely brings duffers to this meeting.
“He did deserve it though it doesn’t always work that,” said Stoute. “I didn’t tell Frankie much. Down the back he was two or three slots further back than I hoped but Frankie had it all under control.”
The $6 million (£4.62million) Classic was won by the favourite Accelerate. Aidan O’Brien’s Mendelssohn led for the first mile but it was not an easy lead and he was cooked turning for home. Roaring Lion had already had enough and for a brief moment Saeed Bin Suroor’s Thunder Snow led and looked like winning.
However, he eventually faded to an honourable third.