Tazeez repays patience as Frankie Dettori hits hot streak
Patience may not make a horse run faster, but it will give a horse the chance to run as fast as he can.
When Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum paid €200,000 for the colt he would name Tazeez it did not look one of the shrewder purchases. Undetected leg problems kept the horse off the track until the autumn of his three-year-old season, but John Gosden is one of the game’s thinkers – be it the politics of racing or a long-term racing programme.
Tazeez is no world beater but he made it six wins from 20 starts – and a perfect three from three at Newmarket’s Rowley Mile – when he won the Group Three Richard Hambro Darley Stakes. The gelding is best suited by dictating the pace and there few better at that tactic than the sheikh’s retained jockey, Richard Hills.
Letty, the Hungarian runner, was racing a little away from the pack and Hills was left to control the race. Heading towards the Dip, he had the three Godolphin runners - Vesuve, Mastery and Al Zir - and Steele Tango snapping at his heels. But Hills had kept enough in reserve to hold Steele Tango, who was finishing behind the winner for the fifth time in as many starts against him, to win by three-quarters of a length.
Tazeez had been knocking on the door for some time since he won the Group Three Earl of Sefton Stakes over course and distance in the spring of last year. His only other victory in nine starts since, in a conditions’ race at Newbury last month, was probably not as impressive as some of the five consecutive placed runs that preceded it. He was a neck second to Stotsfold in the Group Three Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown in May, one-and-quarter lengths third to Byword in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in June and two-and-a-half lengths third to stable companion Debussy in the Grade One Arlington Million in Chicago in August.
“He came to us late in life,” Gosden explained. “He had cysts in his stifles so he spent the first-year-and-a-half at the farm. He didn’t come to me in until he was a three-year-old, so we’ve been catching up ever since. But he won the Cambridgeshire here - same track, same trip – and he’s a grand horse with a good attitude.
“He was a bit unlucky in the Arlington Million, got left and then probably had to do too much to get where he wanted to get and just paid the last half-furlong.”
Tazeez had run in cheek pieces at Newbury but not this time as again Gosden should the thoughtful side of his method. “He was just getting a bit lackadaisical about the whole thing and for two races it just sharpened him enough and I thought the job was done so we’ve taken them off now. And, as you can see today, he raced with a lovely rhythm.
“He could run in one of the Breeders’ Cup races – he particularly enjoys going round those bends as well as the straight of the Rowley Mile – and Hong Kong could be a possibility as well. Those decisions will lie with the owner.”
The decision to keep going with Modeyra, who had been off the track for 357 days, was vindicated for Saeed bin Suroor when the Godolphin filly won the Listed Lanwades Stud Severals Stakes for Frankie Dettori as part of a 1,700-1 four-timer for the jockey from seven booked rides, only one a favourite.
Back in July and August Dettori rode just 28 winners in eight weeks; in the last six weeks he has ridden 36 winners at a strike-rate of 33%. For one of the great confidence riders in the weighing room the timing could not be better the day before Champions day and with the Breeders’ Cup on the horizon.
A jockey in form may not make a horse run faster, but he will give a horse the chance to run as fast as he can.
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