Music Show tops bill in Falmouth Stakes
After more hard-luck stories than the man who was ship-wrecked only to be rescued by the Titanic, Music Show was beginning to look like a horse who could find any number of ways to get beaten.
The filly had finished fourth in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot last month, having finished sixth in the 1000 Guineas – when unfavourably drawn - and third in the Irish equivalent. But she finally found the way to beat them all in the Group One Etihad Airways Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket.
Spacious and Strawberrydaiquiri ensured a strong pace, tracked by Lillie Langtry, Special Duty and Rainfall. At halfway the leaders had the field stretched out but then Ryan Moore had to check on Strawberrydaiquiri as Kieren Fallon cut across the pair as Spacious took the rail with three furlongs to run.
It would be wrong to suggest that the loss of momentum cost Strawberrydaiquiri the race but it certainly compromised her chance of a place. It was Lillie Langtry who was the nearest challenger to Spacious entering the final quarter-mile, but Johnny Murtagh was already starting to niggle on Aidan O’Brien’s filly. Frankie Dettori was also at work on Rainfall but Richard Hughes was sitting near motionless on Music Show.
Hughes had waited at the back of the field and delivered his challenge well inside the final furlong, with the jockey doing little more than manoeuvring around inferior rivals and then easing away to win by two lengths, with Rainfall in third.
Lillie Langtry, the winner of the Coronation, and Special Duty, who had won both the 1000 Guineas and Poule D'Essai Des Pouliches in May, both failed to sparkle in this race – finishing fifth and seventh respectively - but that did not stop bother Hughes, who said: “They went nice and fast so I knew they were going to stop. Everybody kept telling me that she’s had no luck in running and I’ve been watching her. She went quite wide at Ascot – just through a bad draw – but she was very good today.”
Winning trainer Mick Channon had never doubted that Music Show was capable of winning a Group One despite her performances since she ran out such an impressive winner of the Nell Gwyn Stakes on Newmarket’s Rowley Mile course in April.
Indeed, the victory was all the sweeter for having been taken in what was the best race of its type run so far this summer. “After Ascot I was in bits - she had no run at all. She’s a class filly but she’s just been unfortunate in lots of her races.
“I was angry, not blaming anyone, just that the filly never had a run [in the Coronation]. She’s 15 lengths behind and she gets beaten three. You finish fourth and it’s frustration more than anything. But it’s a good job that I keep believing, because you lads say we shouldn’t running. You experts wrote her off.”
“You got back through her races. Even at the Curragh, she was wide all the way. Today they went fast, she got a bit of cover and we took our time on her. In Guineas you can’t always do that and Ascot was no fault of her own. She was drawn two, four wide all the way round – and don’t take my word, have a look.
“It’s annoying when you know they’re good and it doesn’t happen. Everyone says ‘she’s a Group Two filly’ and all that,” he said, the next word left unsaid but doubtless not one to be heard in church on a Sunday.
“But I never had any doubts that she was good. We just needed a bit of luck in running and we got it today. She’s beaten everything that’s beaten her. She’s beaten the Guineas winner, the Coronation winner, she’s beaten everything she had to today. She’s the best three-year-old filly in the country – I never had any doubts about that.”
Having proved herself beyond doubt, Channon is now itching for Music Show to take on the best available. “She’s in the Matron and let’s take Goldikova on - we certainly wouldn’t be frightened, that’s for sure. Everyone wants to go a mile-and-a-quarter and so do I, but not this year. She’s in the Nassau because people think she wants a mile-and-a-quarter. I just think she needed a bit of luck.”
Special Duty finished a disappointing seventh for Criquette Head-Maarek and her rider Tom Queally said: “She ran too bad to be true. She never travelled. She ran OK until half-way and then found nothing. I just took my foot off the accelerator just in case there was something amiss. Nothing jumps out as a problem - it was just too bad to be true.”
It was a day the turned out to be almost too good to be true for Hughes. Music Show was the highlight of a treble including Memory in the Cherry Hinton Stakes and Suited And Booted in the final race.
It was a day the turned out to be almost too good to be true for Hughes. Music Show was the highlight of a treble including Memory in the Cherry Hinton Stakes and Suited And Booted in the final race. He misses the second day of the meeting because of a one-day ban.
Just another hard-luck story.
http://www.senore.com/Memory-a-strong-reminder-in-Cherry-Hinton-a15295
http://www.senore.com/Fireback-blazes-at-Newmarket-a15288
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