Kieren Fallon chooses Seta for 1000 Guineas
The market leaders may have all remained at the latest forfeit stage for the 2000 and 1000 Guineas but Kieren Fallon must be hoping that he will not be paying for the forfeit for making the wrong decision.
The former champion jockey had, this time last week, been faced with a three-way choice between Music Show, Lady Of The Desert and Seta as his ride for the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket in 11 days’ time.
Once Lady Of The Desert had finished third in the Fred Darling Stakes at Newbury on Saturday it came down to a straight choice between Music Show, the winner of the Nell Gwyn Stakes at Newmarket last week, and Seta, who has not raced this season.
It would appear that Fallon has been persuaded by what Seta, trained by Luca Cumani, has been showing him on the gallops at Newmarket. As he explained last week: “She’s been growing all winter, she's yet to put on a bit of weight, I think she's just starting to fill out. I rode her last week and she's just starting to show what we expected. I always thought she was going to be a very good filly.”
Fallon’s decision left Mick Channon with the task of finding a replacement jockey for Music Show and Ryan Moore has come in for the ride. The champion jockey is available because his retaining stable, Sir Michael Stoute, has only one filly engaged in the Guineas, Tabassum. She is owned by Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum and thus will be ridden by the sheikh’s own regular jockey, Richard Hills.
Speaking on his website, Channon was happy enough with the outcome. “Kieren had chosen to ride the other filly but if I can't have him I'm more than happy to have Ryan. He's the champion jockey and will find Music Show the most straightforward of fillies to ride.
“She'll only need one more bit of proper work next week and I imagine Ryan will come down to have a sit on the filly then.”
The Derby may still be six weeks away, and the main trials still to be run, but the track went through a final dress rehearsal with its spring meeting. The days when this meeting was spread over two days also belong to the time when the Investec Asset Management Great Metropolitan Handicap was run over two-and-a-quarter miles.
Then it started at the winning post and ran in the reverse direction of the Derby course for about three furlongs, where it turned right, across the in-field of the main track, rejoining the Derby course just over a mile from home. Because the in-field of the course is downland, and open to the public, it became increasingly difficult for the racecourse executive to maintain the turf in proper racing condition, so in 1985, the race was reduced to a mile-and-a-half and run over the Derby course itself.
The unique character of the race was consequently lost, and it has now become just another handicap, which was won this year by Coin Of The Realm.
The Investec Derby Trial, which is run over an extended 10 furlongs, has had little bearing on the main event in recent years and drew a field of just four runners for this season’s renewal. The favourite was Prompter - sired by the 2005 Derby winner Motivator – and Hayley Turner gave him every chance of upholding the family honour by making the running.
However, the pair were cut down in the last 50 yards by Dreamspeed, under a determined drive by Jimmy Fortune, to win by a head. Dreamspeed’s sire, Barathea, failed to stay 12 furlongs when he was tried in the Derby, finishing fifth to Commander In Chief in 1993.
However, it is the quality rather than the quantity of his son’s resources that is likely to shape Dreamspeed’s future. He is not entered for the Derby and his trainer, Andrew Balding, is more likely to cast his eyes to foreign fields with the Derby Italiano, at Capannelle next month, a more realistic objective.
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