Stotsfold gets international rescue in Brigadier Gerard Stakes
Keep yourself in the best company and your horse in the worst has been the age-old advice that trainers have followed but Walter Swinburn was delighted at the impending hike in the ratings for one of his horses.
Stotsfold had not won for nearly a year but had run some fine races in defeat, most notably when a close third in last season’s Arlington Million. However, his lack of success had seen him slide down the official ratings to the point where he was unlikely to qualify for further international invitations so his victory in the Group Three Blue Square Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown Park was doubly welcome for Swinburn as it also marked only his second winner of the month.
Adam Kirby rode a patient race when he found his path blocked early in the home straight. Having elected to weave an unavailing path up the rail he was rewarded with the right breaks when he switched right to lead in the last furlong and Stotsfold edged out Tazeez in the last hundred yards.
While he was delighted with the win Swinburn said that he had been unworried by the yard’s run of form. “It may appear like that from the outside but there were a lot of seconds, thirds and fourths and horses running well in maidens. So we knew, deep down, that the general health and wellbeing wasn’t in question.”
The question over Stotsfold was whether he would be able to continue his globe-trotting exploits. “This was an important night for him because the handicapper is usually very slow to drop horses,” Swinburn explained. “But he’s very quick to drop their ratings for horses like these. We were 116 before the Winter Derby and 111 tonight. But that’ll get us back up and an international campaign beckons and, given the right conditions, he can compete with the best of them.”
Given his own way Akmal proved that he can compete at a high level when he won the Group Two Blue Square Henry II Stakes. Having not shown his best in his first two starts this season, Akmal put himself in the picture for the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot with a canny front-running ride from Richard Hills.
Having taken an uncontested lead, Hills picked the pace up just as he hit the home straight and gained valuable lengths that Ryan Moore could never peg back on Satapadi, who was one-and-a-half lengths back in second. “He had a very good year last year – started in pretty low company handicapping and finished up winning the Jockey Club Cup,” winning trainer John Dunlop said. “And he did so well during the winter, he got very big, very heavy and quite idle too, and he took a couple of runs to get him back to this form. Today the conditions were right and a great ride from Richard, whose such a good front-running jockey.”
The plans are less high-profile for Fallen Idol, who made the step up from handicap to Listed level when won the Britain's Got Talent Bingo At meccabingo.com Heron Stakes. He only scrambled home by a head, after being left at the start but responded to a driving finish from William Buick and John Gosden was far from despondent. “William said that he got his head wedged in the gate as it opened, because he had it on one side, and he got left,” Gosden explained. “We thought there’d be a lot of pace – on paper there was three front runners – and they all decided to take back and were going an ordinary swinging canter. So we’re impressed that the horse has come from last, off getting left off no pace, to get up and win a head.
“I think it’s a testament to his courage. He’s still not the finished article – he’s still got, mentally, a lot to learn – but he’ll come on a bundle for today. I took him out of the St James’s Palace because I thought that’s too much of a quantum leap for a horse with only two races under his belt. So we’ve popped him in a Group Three at Chantilly on the 13th and I think that’s the next logical step.”
The next step for Dinkum Diamond will be the royal meeting after his victory in the bluesquare.com National Stakes. A rare early-season two-year-old for trainer Henry Candy he will run next in the Norfolk Stakes.
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