Lockinge win earns top spot for Hawk Wing
The assessment of 2003’s Flat performers was unveiled by the British Horseracing Board’s handicapping team at the inaugural BHB Flat Racing Awards at the Savoy Hotel.
However, the decision to award the highest rating of the year to Hawk Wing, the enigmatic Aidan O’Brien-trained four-year-old was not welcomed universally, particularly as the BHB’s new 'Horse of the Year' title was awarded to Falbrav - officially rated some 6lb inferior to Hawk Wing.
Hawk Wing was granted the accolade by virtue of one performance, when he thrashed a top-class field headed by Where Or When by 11 lengths in the one-mile Juddmonte Lockinge Stakes at Newbury in May.
On his only other start last year Hawk Wing finished a disappointing sixth in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot won by Dubai Destination, after which he was retired because of a knee injury.
BHB Senior handicapper Nigel Gray confirmed that differing views over the merits of Hawk Wing had seen disagreement among the panel as to the true merits of that Newbury victory.
“Racing is all about opinion and interpretation and Hawk Wing has probably created a larger divergence of opinion among us than any other horse for a number of years,” said Gray.
“We have to do what we think right on the information that is available to us. We have to seek to reflect what happens on the racecourse.
“Isn’t it possible that Newbury was the one occasion where Hawk Wing had everything in his favour and where he was able to show his real form for the first and only time?
“In my personal opinion, Falbrav would have been my horse of the year too for the durability, versatility and top-class consistency that he showed.
“But we weren’t able to reach a rating of any higher than 127 for him on the strength of his form.”
