November 2018 – Page 4 – Racing Review

Cracksman

Cracksman is a retired thoroughbred racehorse, owned by Anthony Oppenheimer, bred at his Hascombe and Valiant Stud in Newmarket and trained, throughout his racing career, by John Gosden at Clarehaven Stables, also in Newmarket. Sired by Frankel – the highest-rated horse in the history of Timeform and World Thoroughbred Rankings – out of a Pivotal mare, Cracksman won eight of his 11 starts, including four at the highest level, and £2.79 million in win and place prize money.

In fact, he emulated his sire by winning the Champion Stakes on British Champions’ Day at Ascot, not once, but twice. In 2017, as a three-year-old, he stayed on strongly to win the finale of the Middle Distance category of the British Champions Series by an impressive 7 lengths from Poet’s Word, trained by Sir Michael Stoute and, in 2018, produced an almost identical performance to rout Crystal Ocean, also trained by Stoute, by 6 lengths, with jockey Frankie Dettori waving his whip in celebration in the last half a furlong or so. His latter victory in the £1.3 million showpiece also sealed a third trainers’ championship for John Gosden, despite more than two months of the season remaining.

Dettori rode Cracksman nine times in total and was beaten on him just twice, once in the Derby, for which he started favourite and finished third, beaten three-quarters of a length and a neck, and once in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, in which he was never travelling and was eased down to finish second, beaten 2¼ lengths, behind his old rival Poet’s Word.

The latter contest was run on good to firm going, which Cracksman did not appreciate, and in warm, humid conditions, which may have been why he sweated up badly in the preliminaries. There was also a suggestion from John Gosden that his fractious, fidgety behaviour was due to the proximity of the fillies returning from the preceding Duke of Cambridge Stakes. In any event, on that occasion Dettori described Cracksman as uncharacteristically “lethargic”, “one paced” and “lazy”.

Horses

Enable

In November, 2018, Enable won the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs Racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky and, in so doing, made history by becoming the first winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe to win a Breeders’ Cup race in the same season. Her Timeform Annual Rating, of 134, is 6lb short of that required for her to be considered one of the truly exceptional horses of the Timeform epoch, which began in 1948, but she succeeded where eight previous winners of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, including Dancing Brave in 1986, had failed.

Sent off at 8/13 favourite for the Breeders’ Cup Turf, Enable was pressed throughout the final quarter of a mile by Magical, trained by Aidan O’Brien – who’d won the British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes at Ascot two weeks earlier – but kept on strongly to win by three-quarters of a length. Her magnificent performance came less than a month after winning Europe’s premier middle-distance prize for the second year running – when reportedly only 85% fit – and was made all the more remarkable by the fact that her four-year-old campaign didn’t start until early September after a series of setbacks.

Bred and owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah, trained by John Gosden and ridden, for most of her career, by Frankie Dettori, at the time of writing, Enable has won all bar one of her 11 starts and is unbeaten in seven starts over a mile and a half at the highest level. Her career earnings currently stand at in excess of £8 million and, although her future has yet to be decided, she may well stay in training as a five-year-old, with an unprecedented third win in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe as her main aim.

John Gosden has already said, more than once, that the final decision on her retirement, or otherwise, lies with Prince Khalid but, when interviewed after the Breeders’ Cup Turf, both trainer and jockey appeared enthusiastic about running Enable as a five-year-old. Gosden may even have dropped a less-than-subtle hint when he remarked, “Maybe she’s getting better”, in his post-race interview.

Trainers

Henry Cecil

Henry Cecil was one of the most celebrated and succesful horse trainers of all time. Specialising in flat racing he won all there was to win during his career including multiple wins of all of the British classics (including the 1000 Guineas 6 times and the Epsom Oaks 8). He consistently outshone his contemporaries and was awarded Champion Jockey status 10 times over a 17 year period.

Cecil’s introduction to racing took place at his Stepfather’s Freemason Lodge stable in 1964. Going his own way in 1969 it wasn’t long before he had his first Group one winner, Wolver Hollow in the Eclipse Stakes. The next year saw him win the Queen Alexandra Stakes at Royal Ascot with Parthenon. Success breeds success, and the early 70s saw his first Classics win with Bolkonski at the 2,000 Guineas. It was a sign of things to come with many more wins in the Classics in the years that followed.

It wasn’t all plane sailing for Henry Cecil though. There followed a spate of deaths and relationship breakdowns in his working life, impacting his career in a big way. A fall out with Sheikh Mohammed had an especially significant effect with many horses suddenly removed from Cecil’s stable.

Like all winners in life though he would later bounce back. All it took was for an Oaks win in 2007 and the momentum was with him once more. 2011 saw him saddle 55 winners and rake in close to £3 million in prize money. The success of that and the following year was in no small part due to Frankel, a horse that would go on to have a flawless career featuring nine group one wins in a row including the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and Champion Stakes.

Henry Cecil died in 2013 but more than set the bar for others over a decades long career. It was evident how at home he felt in racing, and his gentlemanly yet competitive way will not fade quickly from the minds of his peers or of horse racing fans in general.

Trainers

Nicky Henderson

Nicky Henderson is a successful British horse trainer best known for his winning habit at the Cheltenham Festival where he’s amassed some 58 wins over the years – and 3000 winners in total. He’s also been crowned British Jump Racing Champion Trainer five times.

Henderson came from a racing family, and his Father was a founder of Racecourse Holdings Trust. Upon his death one of the Cheltenham Festival races was renamed the Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase. Nicky Henderson went on to win this very race, which was a fitting tribute to his Father. Many put his love and affinity for the Cheltenham Festival down to this connection to the event.

His successes at the Cheltenham Festival are numerous. There’s Remittance Man, the 1992 winner of the Queen Mother Champion Chase, Champion Hurdle wins with Binocular in 2010 and See You There in 1985, 1986 and 1987, and Cheltenham Gold Cup wins with Long Run in 2011 and Bobs Worth in 2013.

Henderson has himself rode as a jockey in his younger years, riding 75 winners in the process. His training career started as assistant to Fred Winter, before going it alone after 4 years.

Although he’s known for his Cheltenham successes, Nicky Henderson lacks a Grand National win and has had numerous attempts at rectifying this since his first entry, Zongalero, in 1979. Despite the omission he did experience plenty of success at the wider 2018 Grand National meeting. Henderson’s Might Bite won the Betway Bowl on the opening day of the meeting, while We Have A Dream and L’Ami Serge also won. It’s clear that 40 year in, Henderson has lost none of his love for the sport.