Frankie Dettori was holding an ice pack to a bruised right arm as he waited to pick up his prize after the Dewhurst Stakes here on Saturday, the result of a high-speed fall from Liftoff in the opening race that could have been far worse. His smile was broader than ever, however, as he assessed the prospects for Chaldean in next season’s Classics.
It was Dettori who convinced Andrew Balding, Chaldean’s trainer, that he deserved a place in the field for Britain’s most prestigious juvenile contest and victory was secured with a well-judged ride from the front after Dettori seized the initiative when none of his rivals seemed keen to make the running.
The jockey had been impressed by his mount when winning at Doncaster last month. He said: “He gave me an amazing feel and the form has worked out, the third home won the Autumn Stakes [earlier on Saturday’s card].
He’s tough and at this moment, you couldn’t keep him out of the first three for next year’s Guineas.”
Much of the interest before the race centred around Sir Michael Stoute’s Nostrum, the favourite, and the veteran trainer’s prospects of winning his second Dewhurst, 36 years on from the first.
As the runners were going to post attention turned to a plane trailing a banner that read “#freeshamsa” making several passes over the Rowley Mile. Sheikh Mohammed, whose daughter Shamsa was allegedly kidnapped from a street in nearby Cambridge more than 20 years ago and is believed to have been held in Dubai ever since, was not at the track to see a race sponsored by his Darley Stud operation. She did attend all three days of Newmarket’s prestigious Book 1 sale at Tattersalls earlier in the week.
The Sheikh’s Godolphin operation took both of the earlier juvenile Group races on the card with Flying Honours and Silver Knott, but the unbeaten Naval Power, their runner in the Dewhurst, was one of the first beaten and finished sixth of seven. Instead, it was the famous colours of the late Prince Khalid Abdullah and his Juddmonte bloodstock operation that came to the fore, aboard both Chaldean and Nostrum, who finished third.
Royal Scotsman, a 12-1 outsider, stayed on well to finish a head behind the winner for Paul and Oliver Cole.
Windsor 1.15 Alcazan 1.45 Kerdos 2.20 The Big Board 2.50 Dame Ethel Smyth 3.20 Further Measure 3.50 Soames Forsyte 4.20 Vidhaata
4.50 Arab Cinder
Musselburgh 1.35 George Ridsdale 2.10 Magna Moralia 2.40 Monhammer 3.10 Makanah 3.40 Autumn Festival 4.10 Emily Post
4.45 Never Dark (nap) 5.15 Burtonlodge Beauty
Yarmouth 1.55 Alzahir 2.30 Tafreej 3.00 Richard P Smith 3.30 Sea Stone 4.00 Viola (nb) 4.30 Gone 5.05 Priscilla's Wish 5.40 Fourshadesofsilver
Wolverhampton 5.00 Sicario 5.30 Topo Chico 6.00 Triple Jaye 6.30 Lady Of Arabia 7.00 Crystal Dawn 7.30 Maahi Ve 8.00 Kenilworth King
8.30 Cicely
Chaldean was a first Dewhurst winner for Balding, whose father, Ian, took the race three times with Silly Season, Dashing Blade and the mighty Mill Reef.
“It is the first season I’ve had runners for Juddmonte and he was the first one in,” he said. “He was very smart.
“Funnily, we thought he was very good early spring and into the summer but he got beaten first time out. Since then he has gone on and on. He has got less smart at home as he has got smarter on the racecourse and that is how you want it really.
“I was fairly confident a furlong out but less confident with half a furlong to go. He had been out in front a long time and Frankie felt he kicked a little earlier than ideal, but it was probably a race-winning move.”
Mill Reef went on to win the Derby, King George and Arc in the season after his Dewhurst success but Balding does not expect Chaldean to stay further than a mile next year. The son of Frankel – also a Dewhurst winner, in 2010 – is now top-priced at 8-1 second-favourite for the 2,000 Guineas next May, three points behind the 5-1 favourite, Aidan O’Brien’s Little Big Bear.
Silver Knott, Godolphin’s winner in the Autumn Stakes for Charlie Appleby and champion jockey-elect, William Buick, could also start his three-year-old season in a Guineas trial, but Flying Honours, who took the Group Three Zetland Stakes for the same team, is seen as more of a stayer.
“Staying will be his forte,” Appleby said. “We will put him in one of those [Derby] trials in the spring and see where we are.”
