Defeat on Golden Horn last Wednesday left him looking aghast at the interruption to his blessed renaissance but Frankie Dettori was not down for long. After ending the week with the top jockey award at York, Dettori collected his fifth group one victory of the year at Deauville yesterday.
Shalaa, boldly committed to the Darley Prix Morny by his trainer, John Gosden, despite unsuitably soft ground, made light of conditions and opposition. With Dettori exuding confidence, he justified his starting price of 1-2, beating Gutaifan by almost two lengths. “He didn’t like the ground but he tolerated it,” Gosden said.
Both the first two are in the ownership of Sheikh Joaan al-Thani’s Al Shaqab Racing and the going played to the strengths of the runner-up. Shalaa, though, proved himself a class act, albeit in a race with no depth of quality or quantity.
For a man with his experience, winning this top juvenile prize for a fourth time, Dettori’s reaction was extreme. Returning to unsaddle, he called Shalaa “the best two-year-old I’ve ever sat on”. Several bookmakers took the hint and shortened him to favourite for the Qipco 2,000 Guineas next May.
Gosden, however, has already indicated his misgivings about Shalaa’s stamina beyond six furlongs and he will not test it just yet. “He is very fast and we will look at the Middle Park Stakes next,” he said.
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A much likelier candidate for the distant 2016 classics impressed on testing ground at he Curragh. Herald The Dawn, a brother to Dawn Approach, needed every yard of the seven furlong group two to impose himself, gaining a second group winner in four days for Jim Bolger and Godolphin.
The final group one of Deauville’s season fell to a less decorated British stable. Odeliz, whose last run in Britain was a third behind Golden Horn’s conqueror Arabian Queen on Derby day, was a long-priced winner of the Prix Jean Romanet for fillies. It was a second success at elite level for the Middleham trainer, Karl Burke, six years after his first.
More than 30,000 turned up at the Knavesmire on Saturday but few of them backed the fairytale winner of the Betfred Ebor. The richest handicap in Europe fell to the 33-1 shot, Litigant, having his first run in 491 days and his first for a virtually unknown Lambourn trainer.
Joe Tuite has only 20 horses but may face demand for more following this feat. The Irishman, previously assistant to Mick Channon, is now eyeing group races for his lightly-raced seven-year-old. “He’ll either go for the Cadran on Arc day in Paris or to Ascot on Champions’ Day,” Tuite said.
Every trainer at York, however, was subordinate to the deeds of William Haggas, whose 15 runners produced five winners and three placed horses. Four of the winners were two-year-olds and Haggas spent his 55th birthday yesterday scouting for next year’s crop at Doncaster Sales.
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“Of the four that won, Recorder is the one that will definitely stay a mile or more,” Haggas said. “He’ll probably go to Ireland for the National Stakes now. Tasleet will go for the Mill Reef at Newbury and Besharah for the Cheveley Park.”
Ajaya was Haggas’s final winner, his third in the Irish Thoroughbred Marketing Gimcrack Stakes, but he was equally pleased with third-placed Raucous. “We’ll mind him for next season,” he said. “He’ll definitely make a three-year-old.”