Celebration time at Goodwood for Frankie Dettori and Poet’s Voice
There are plenty of ways to win a race – and almost as many in which to lose one.
A year ago Frankie Dettori and Saeed bin Surror came away from Goodwood after Delegator had won the Group Two totesport.com Celebration Mile with a feeling of mission accomplished which lasted all the way until his urine sample was tested and came up with a red light.
One BHA inquiry later he was disqualified but this time around the main fear was that the race might be lost at the start. Poet’s Voice had developed the attitude of a sprinter, the only problem is that that is not much good for a miler and Frankie Dettori knew that what happened in the first furlong would probably what was in store for him in the last.
The four-runner field did not have an obvious front-runner but Kieren Fallon kicked Summer Fete into the lead at a pace that allowed Dettori to hook Poet’s Voice onto the end of the line. He kept his card close to his chest until Main Aim was sent to challenge the leader halfway down the home straight. When Poet’s Voice came alongside there was only one winner, as Main Aim’s stamina was quickly drained on the soft ground, and the winner pulled four-and-a-half lengths clear at the line.
“We always thought a bit of him,” Dettori said. “Unfortunately he went through a phase where he was very head strong and he was doing everything too quickly. But Saeed and the lads in the yard spent a lot of time to get him settled and, once he settled, then he’s a good horse.
“He’s learning all the time. His grandfather, Dubai Millennium, was the same it took a bit of time just to get him to settle but he’s going the right way now. All the family like a bit of cut in the ground and I guess the next step will be the QEII at Ascot.”
The next step for Theyskens' Theory could well be next season’s Classics after she won the Group Three Chichester Observer Prestige Stakes. Martin Dwyer was always in control of the race and Theyskens' Theory one-and-a-quarter lengths. She is now one of the leading contenders for next season’s 1000 Guineas with her trainer, Brian Meehan, considering a crack at the Group One Fillies’ Mile at Ascot next month.
Luca Cumani’s horses are in rampant form but it helps when a trainer has a jockey of the talent and experience of Kieren Fallon. The pair teamed up for a double with Axiom in the opener and then Drunken Sailor in the Listed Windflower March Stakes.
The combined winning distance was a half-length and both were a testimony to Fallon’s coolness in riding a couple of well-backed favourites seemingly without a thought of defeat. Drunken Sailor, who got no run when he finished late to claim second in the Northumberland Plate and then got to the front too soon for his own good at York on his next run, is now in line for a run in the Melbourne Cup, a race in which the trainer finished runner-up with Purple Moon in 2007 and Bauer 12 months later.
His wife,Sara, representing the yard at Goodwood, said: “We fancied both of them. We weren’t sure about the ground with this horse but he’s done us proud. He’s a real success story and on to Melbourne. He was really bought for Dubai in the winter – the owners who race horses in Dubai in the winter mainly. He was bought out of a field in Ireland, a little hairy thing last October. And he’s done nothing but improve since came here. He did well in Dubai in the winter and he’s just developed into a Melbourne Cup candidate.”
“The Northumberland Plate was the race that said it all. He had an unlucky trip there but ran a blinder. And then he should have won at York but we hit the front a bit too soon. Today the plan was not to hit the front too soon. He ticks all the boxes for Melbourne; he travels, you can put him where you want him in a race, he likes form ground, he’ll stay, he’s got a turn of foot – everything seems to be about right. We just need the draw now, please not in the car park where we were two years ago [when Bauer finished a nose second].”
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