Wootton Bassett makes his sales pitch at Doncaster
Prestige may be good but it has never paid a training bill.
Richard Fahey has gone on record as thinking that Wotton Bassett could be the best horse he has trained. That has yet to be fully proved but he is already one of the most profitable.
Last month Wootton Bassett won £147,720.00 in a sales race at York’s Ebor meeting and he took his career earnings – in just four unbeaten starts – to short change short of £350,000 when he won the Weatherbys Insurance 2-Y-O Stakes on the second day of the St Leger meeting at Doncaster.
At York he had beaten Galtymore Lad by one-and-three-quarter lengths but the mixture of 8lb weight concession and an all-action Kieren Fallon drive in saddle Galtymore Lad had Wotton Bassett about a half-length down with a furlong to run. In three runs Wotton Bassett had hinted at class but had not needed to provide the evidence. However, under this examination, he delivered for Paul Hanagan to win by a length with Premier Clarets – also trained by Fahey – taking third.
The purists might scoff at Fahey decision to pursue mammon rather than glory. But the trainer can now consider a tilt at races like the Middle Park Stakes safe in knowledge that the books have been balanced. “He’s a good, hardy horse – and he’s getting better,” Fahey said. “It’s massive money – it’s £193,000 – so I was never in doubt that I was coming here. We’ll have to step him up now and we’ll see from there. He’s a big, scopey horse and I hope he stays – he’s got a lot of natural speed.”
Hanagan is not a jockey for making much of a noise – he prefers to simply get on with the job – but he could not contain his enthusiasm for a colt whom he believes can have a future beyond his two-year-old season. “He’s a bit of a freak. He’s such a straight-forward, laid-back horse – he came in like he hadn’t had a race and there’s hardly a blow off him,” Hanagan said, and he was not even worried when Galtymore Lad had edged in front.
“To be honest I think it did him the world of good because he was out in front a long way at York last time and I think it helped him. He’s seen that other horse get half a length up and he battled all the way back. He’s a bit keen in the races but there’s nothing really been good enough to lead me. So I think the better the race, the better he’ll be.”
The better the race the more excited Frankie Dettori seems to become and the effervescent Italian treated the crowd to a flying dismount after Eastern Aria won the Group Two DFS Park Hill Stakes. This race, knows as the fillies’ St Leger, was made a thorough stamina test by Roses For The Lady and, in archetypal Mark Johnston fashion, stayed on to beat Rumoush in a last-furlong duel. “You know that, when somebody comes to you, you’re going to find plenty with a Mark Johnston horse,” Dettori said. “I can be a front-runner if I want but they were going plenty fast enough. I didn’t want to kick three out - I thought I’d just wait a bit longer than usual – but she stayed really well.”
Having appeared to be on his way out of British racing – with a six-month ban over laying two of his horses which was later reduced to a fine – Harry Findlay is staying around and making life difficult for BHA chief executive Nic Coward.
The pair had an impromptu and, from Findlay’s side, heated exchange the crux of which appears top revolve around Findlay’s contention that he had been given the green light to lay his own horses – within an overall betting strategy – by the BHA, something which has been vigorously denied by Coward and the BHA Paul Roy.
Findlay is still outraged at the treatment he received from the BHA - reportedly saying to Coward that “the BHA have ruined my life – resign” - and has promised to comment after Black Moth which he part-owns, lines up in the opening Flying Childers Stakes at Doncaster tomorrow.
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