INJURY has ended the career of last year’s Epsom Derby hero and the same fate could await the winner of the 2004 Oaks. However, while North Light’s retirement was announced yesterday and Ouija Board may have run her final race at York last week, the colt that beat them both in Paris last October now has Motivator in his sights.
Even as Sir Michael Stoute issued the news of North Light’s departure because of a pelvic condition, Jonathan Pease was confirming that Bago, winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe last season, will complete his preparation for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes with a run at Saint-Cloud on Sunday.
Bago, beaten by Grey Swallow when favourite for the Tattersalls Gold Cup last month, will take on Alkaased, runner-up in the Coronation Cup, and the Australian-trained Elvstroem in the group one Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. “It would be nine weeks between Ireland and the King George, so I see no harm in him having another race,” Pease said.
Despite settling in France, Pease retains the habits of his English upbringing and is, if anything, still more of a cricket lover than Stoute. Animated as he considered England’s prospects against Australia, Pease conceded he will have other priorities when the Ashes series opens at Lord’s next month.
That match clashes with the King George meeting, switched this year from Ascot to Newbury, and Pease is undeterred by the cramped odds already being offered about Motivator. “I thought he was pretty good in the Derby, you really couldn’t say otherwise,” he said. “But he is quite a fizzy horse and it must be possible that he won’t run the same way in back-to-back races.
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“Motivator is going to have another race in the meantime, in the Eclipse, and I thought we should do the same. Saint-Cloud is a left-handed course, like Newbury, and Sunday’s race comes at the right time for us. It wasn’t the best of days when Bago got beaten at the Curragh but I think he is a much better horse on firmer ground.”
Bago, who has already won group one races at two, three and four, beat Ouija Board and North Light into third and fifth places respectively in the Arc and, while he has that target again for the autumn, the vanquished horses are unlikely to reoppose.
Ouija Board suffered a stress fracture of a cannonbone when running dismally in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes a week ago. She is undergoing treatment at Newmarket and will recuperate at Ed Dunlop’s Gainsborough Stables but the future of the Horse of the Year in 2004 is in jeopardy. Lord Derby, the filly’s owner, said: “We will not hesitate to retire her if there is any doubt about her welfare.”
North Light also disappointed on his only run this season, when a labouring second in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown Park and Stoute sensed that evening that all might not be well.
Yesterday, revealing that a stress fracture of the right ilial had brought his career to an end, Stoute said: “He was a joy to train and we’ll long remember his victories in the Dante and the Derby.”
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Stoute won the Derby twice in succession, through Kris Kin and North Light, but he did not field a runner in either of the Epsom classics this year. Indeed, despite four winners at York last week, his yard has been below its usual standard in the landmark races and this latest blow follows an injury to Rob Roy, his leading classic hope.
Frankie Dettori’s absence from the royal meeting, through suspension, was felt by all but for the sport’s biggest crowd-puller there was an unexpected benefit from the purgatory. Dettori has returned revitalised, which is bad news for those of his colleagues who believe they can take the champion jockey title from him.
Having retreated to Sardinia for the duration of Royal Ascot, Dettori spent Sunday in a punt on the River Cam before returning to ride winners at Nottingham and Windsor on Monday. Yesterday, he breezed into a sweltering Brighton and won on his first two rides.
“I’d been on the go since January, so I was due for a break,” he said. “It came at the wrong time, of course, and it did seem a very long week, but it’s done me the world of good. I feel much better and brighter for it.”