Native Khan be better after Solario Stakes win
Travel may broaden the mind but it may not have done much for the peace of mind of Kieren Fallon.
The Irishman finished this week’s Ebor meeting at York as the leading rider and then jetted off to America for big-race rides at Arlington Park but missed out on three good winners at Sandown Park in the process.
Fallon had been in the saddle when Native Khan won his maiden at Newmarket’s July meeting, had been booked when the colt was due to run at Newbury last month and will surely waste no time reminding Ed Dunlop about that when the ride becomes available again; although Eddie Ahern will be in no hurry to vacate the position.
Dunlop had admitted that it was a step into the unkown for Native Khan in the Group Three Alexis Catchpole Celebration Solario Stakes, but it was clearly a step in the right direction.
Ahern opted to play a waiting game as Stentorian and Surrey Star set the gallop but then Ahern had to pick his way through the field on the favourite. He was stuck behind the leaders, with Frankie Dettori trying to box him in from the outside on Roayh. But then a gap appeared as Stentorian weakened and Native Khan came through – idling through the last furlong – to beat Measuring Time by a half-length. "It wasn't that easy as there was no pace early on,” Ahern said. “It was only his second run so I didn't want to go around the outside. He’s a big future ahead of him, he’ll have learned a lot there and he's a good horse.
“When he was in behind he was travelling really well and he was always getting into those gaps for me. He picked up and went away but there’s a bit of a hill and loads of photographers and he was looking at them. But if they’d come at him he'd have gone again, and the turn of foot you’d seen at Newmarket you’d have seen again here had we got a fast pace.”
Fast ground would seem to be as important to Dunlop’s plans. "He did it well considering it was a little bit of a messy race,” he said. “We were in jail, but Eddie got us out and he’ll have learned a lot from it. He won't have a heavy campaign, maybe one or two more races but it’ll be a big one. He's in the Dewhurst, the Racing Post Trophy and the Grand Criterium, which as he is French-bred, we’ll consider."
However, ground considerations will also play their part because it was soft conditions that prompted Dunlop to miss the race at Newbury. “We pulled out last weekend because the ground was soft. He’s a very good moving horse, he floats over the ground I’m sure he’ll have to encounter it one time. His dad [Azamour] with some give in the ground at times, but I wouldn’t want it a bog.”
Soft ground would be ideal for Seta who made it three wins from her last three starts in the Listed Danepak Atalanta Stakes. With regular rider Fallon absent, Jean-Pierre Guillambert had Seta up with the lead from the start and then had to repel a late run from Frankie Dettori on the Godolphin runner, Lush Lashes.
It was a close finish, with Luca Cumani’s filly only a short-head in front, but Guillambert reckoned he had more in hand if needed, although he admitted to a few nervous moments before reaching the sanctuary of the winning post. "I’ve been lucky enough to ride her in her last couple of bits of work, which I think probably helped there today. It was one of those last furlongs that seems an awful long way.
"I was screaming for the line really. Had it been that Frankie had come to me earlier she might have battled back. It could have just been unlucky that he came to me so close to the line.”
Guillambert left it close to the line to win the richest race on the card, the Sunderlands Handicap, when Forte Dei Marmi made it a profitable double for both the jockey and Cumani.
The trainer is at Arlington, where he will run Summit Surge in tonight’s Grade One Arlington Million. However an outside draw of 10 does not look good. As Cumani’s wife, Sara, said: “Unhappy trainer though because he’s badly drawn yet again.”
Fallon may just have to take a broad-minded view of it all.
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