d**k Turpin finally claims his reward
Having knocked on the door of a Group One victory three times this season, d**k Turpin kicked the door open at Chantilly.
Richard Hannon has an enviable team of milers this year, led by Canford Cliffs and Paco Boy, and d**k Turpin, second in the 2000 Guineas, Poule D'Essai Des Poulains and St James's Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot just 19 days ago, finally gained a deserved championship win in the Prix Jean Prat.
This race had looked just as tough an assignment as the others for the colt as he was taking on Lope De Vega, who had been an impressive winner of the Poulains and then the Prix Du Jockey Club.
However, there were warning signs as the field were being loaded into the stalls as Lope De Vega became increasing restless. Altair Star, running as a pacemaker, led the field into the home straight at which point Maxime Guyon moved Lope De Vega upside and led about two-and-a-half furlongs out.
He was collared at the two pole as d**k Turpin eased past for Richard Hughes and quickened four lengths clear of Siyouni at the line with the British pair Xtension, trained by Clive Cox, and Hearts Of Fire, from the Pat Eddery yard, in third and fourth.
Lope De Vega, looking a shadow of the horse who had won two French Classics, trailed in last of the right runners.
Hannon said on his website: “We’ve always felt that d**k Turpin was a great horse, and he proved it to everyone in France. It was some performance, but often you get good horses who are always unlucky and never manage to win a big one, so I am so pleased that this fellow has got his just rewards.
“The pressure is off now that he has won his Group One, but, though he has had a busy season with five runs already, it seems that d**k Turpin might be still improving as he has beaten Xtension farther than he had done when second at Newmarket [in the 2000 Guineas].
“We were taking a chance running him so soon after Ascot, but he was so well at home that we thought 'why not', and as Sheikh Mohammed always says 'the biggest risk is not taking any'.
"We’d not run him on firm ground, so, while he is entered in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood, we will monitor the weather before making a decision, and he could well go back to France later on for the Prix Moulin and Prix de la Forêt.”
The victory in France will not count towards Hannon’s British prize money total, where he trails Sir Michael Stoute by just over £100,000 as he attempts to win the trainers’ title for a second time. When Hannon won the title in 1992 his two-year-olds, led by the speedball Lyric Fantasy, played a prominent part and the juvenile division has been to the fore again this season.
Zebedee had looked to be ready for the step up to six furlongs having finished fifth in the Norfolk Stakes, over the minimum distance, at Royal Ascot last month. But his win in the Listed Dragon Stakes at Sandown Park on Friday has given the trainer food for thought with the Molecomb Stakes at Goodwood a likely target.
Hannon believes that the fast downhill five furlongs track could be just right for the colt. “That Sandown win has done Zebedee's confidence the world of good, and he has come back bouncing. The Molecomb looks the obvious race and the track will suit him, but the fact that he won over Sandown's stiff five suggests that he'll stay a bit further, so we would have to consider a tilt at the Prix Robert Papin over the extra half-furlong at Maisons-Laffitte. There is also the Roses Stakes at Doncaster, and he has so much toe that he'll be hard to beat in the speed races.”
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