Khaadem landed a major gamble in the Stewards’ Cup here, beating a huge field by daylight in what is supposed to be one of the most competitive races of the year. In doing so, he confirmed Charlie Hills’s burgeoning reputation as an excellent trainer of sprinters, but the outcome was not without controversy, as officials were criticised for the overnight watering that slowed down the racing surface.
“I so enjoyed that,” said Hills, who had a big week, thanks to the record-breaking third victory in the King George enjoyed by Battaash on Friday. Half an hour after the Stewards’ Cup, he was back in the winners’ enclosure after the two-year-old Persuasion made a very classy racecourse debut.
Battaash remains the headline act at Hills’s Faringdon Place stable in Lambourn but Khaadem could threaten that position and it will surely not be long before he gets his chance in a top-class contest. He ran here off a stiff-looking rating of 107 and the fact that he was able to defy the weight and win handsomely suggests big things to come.
Market Rasen
1.20 Lucou 1.50 Cotswold Prince 2.25 Prancing Oscar 3.00 Court Duty
3.30 Fr Humphrey (nb) 4.05 Hattaab 4.40 Ulysses 5.10 Elena Sue
Chester
2.00 Sermon 2.35 Cognac 3.10 Vintage Brut 3.40 Hereby 4.15 Oh Purple Reign (nap) 4.50 Dragons Tail 5.20 Bold Statement
“This fellow is a very good horse who is only going to get better and better,” his 40-year-old trainer said. “I was really impressed with the way he behaved. He was mentally not quite on his A game earlier in the year, he had to have a hood on in the preliminaries. But now he’s growing up and starting to become a man.”
The only blip on Khaadem’s record was when he was seventh of nine at Royal Ascot but Hills said the colt scoped poorly. “He was just so lethargic that day, and I had really fancied him.”
Khaadem is entered in Newbury’s Hungerford Stakes in a fortnight’s time but it is hard to imagine him being stepped up in distance after this performance, when he showed his pace by cruising into contention along the far rail. Haydock’s Sprint Cup next month seems a more likely target, bearing in mind Hills went there with Magical Memory after winning the 2015 Stewards’ Cup, and the grey failed by just three parts of a length.
While Hills celebrated, bookmakers were considerably less delighted by the outcome. Brett Williams of Unibet, the Stewards’ Cup sponsors, said Khaadem was “a massive loser” for the firm after being backed from 10-1 in the week to his starting price of 4-1. Glorious week here can throw up some puzzling results but Williams said Unibet had lost over the five days, thanks to the likes of Stradivarius and Too Darn Hot.
It was also a tough day for the local trainer Amanda Perrett, for all that she was pleased with Open Wide, the strong-finishing runner-up in the Stewards’ Cup. She was much less happy about the 4mm of irrigation applied to the track the previous evening and said: “I’ve got a real gripe with Goodwood about this.
“It’s not fair on these fast-ground horses. They’ve got to make the ground safe but they shouldn’t make it loose on top. These horses have been waiting for fast ground all year.”
Some watering seemed inevitable after three course records were lowered during racing on Friday but the effect was perhaps slightly more than intended. At any rate, Pat Dobbs, rider of Open Wide, got his excuses in early by saying of the ground after the first race: “A bit loose, too much water”.
But the clerk of the course, Ed Arkell, said he had put less water on the course than it had lost in the previous 48 hours. “The track held moisture very well up until Thursday and then dried very quickly,” he explained.
“The forecast for today was the same as it was yesterday and if that had been the case we’d have been on absolute rattling ground. That’s not an ideal situation. All we were trying to do was just maintain the moisture level and keep the ground where it was on Friday.”
Lord Grimthorpe did not make it to the winner’s enclosure on this card but was still the centre of much media attention when he confirmed that Enable, the superstar of this summer’s action, will race next month in the Yorkshire Oaks. It was a very popular announcement, as there had been fears the mare may already have run her last race in Britain.
The Arc in October remains her main target but connections evidently feel the York race will be a useful prep which she should be able to win without ruining her chance in Paris.
Grimthorpe added that no decision has been taken about Enable’s campaign after the Arc, so there is at least a chance that she could turn up on Champions’ Day or at the Breeders’ Cup.
