Fifteen left in Oaks
There were no major surprises from the final field declared for the Investec Oaks at Epsom on Friday.
There will be 15 runners with Henry Cecil running both Aviate and Timepiece as he attempts to win the race for a ninth time. The only two withdrawals from the five-day stage were the Godolphin-owned Hibaayeb and Lady Lupus.
The defection of Hibaayeb leaves Frankie Dettori free to ride the Michael Jarvuis-trained Sajjhaa, who runs in the colours of Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum. Hibaayeb will be running for only the second time in her life, having won her maiden at Sandown Park two weeks ago.
One of the market leaders is Rumoush (pictured), who is trained by Marcus Tregoning for his main patron Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum.
Tregoning gives the impression that Rudyard Kipling’s poem If is a constant source of guidance – although that must have surely been tested this season when he watched a Classic winner slip through his grasp.
He had trained Makfi for the sheikh in his early days only to see the colt sold on before he had even run. Then Tregoning could only watch as Makfi, now trained in France by Mikel Delzangles, won the 2000 Guineas. The following day Tregoning ran Rumoush and was equally helpless as a mixture of rain-softened ground and a strong draw bias left the filly stranded to finish seventh.
“I think she’d have been in the frame, which would have been a really good Oaks trial,” he said philosophically. “Sheikh Hamdan was keen for her to run in the 1000 because it’s usually a good trial for the Oaks. But what we weren’t bargaining on was the ground going against us and drawing 18 of 18 – which wasn’t great.”
Rumoush has not run since but Tregoning, keen to increase her experience without the rigours of a race, took the filly to Lingfield last week as part of his preparations. “I worked her with another filly called Fatanah, who was second at Newbury on her last start in a Listed race. And they did a decent bit of work over a mile-and-a-quarter. I really just wanted to get her to come round that turn and down that hill to make sure she could handle it and just give her a bit more experience because she’s quite lightly raced. She came out of it well and we’re pleased with her,” he said, and reflecting on her guineas run adding: “I don’t think it’s done her any harm – she’s come out of it fine – and full speed ahead.”
There are no questions about Rumoush’s speed but - as a half-sister to last year’s Guineas winner, Ghanaati – there is a doubt about her lasting the 12 furlongs of the Oaks that Tregoning accepts. “She’s got to get the trip,” he said. “I train a horse called Mawatheeq, a half-brother, who’s by Danzig. He’s more the influence for speed than stamina, and Mawatheeq is very effective from a mile-and-a-quarter, where he was second in the Champion Stakes, to a mile-and-a-half, where he won the Cumberland Lodge very easily. So I’m hopeful that she, being by Rahy, will get it. I think she’s got a reasonable relaxed way of going which will help and a good kick at the end.”
The kick that Makfi produced when he won the 2000 Guineas must have felt like a blow to the solar plexus for Tregoning. The colt had been in his yard until autumn when he was sold as part of a clear out consignment by the owner. The decision was not Tregoning’s but he put a brave face on its outcome.
“That’s the trouble with selling an awful lot of horses. Sheikh Hamdan sells 70 or 80 horses every year and we sold a lot of two-year-olds last year and he was in that bunch. It’s obviously disappointing but fantastic for his new trainer who is reaping all the rewards, which is great for him.”
Or, as Kipling wrote: “If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.”
Marcus Tregoning’s Oaks record: 2002 Shadow Dancing (3rd), 2002 Esloob (13th); 2003 Hammiya (11th).
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