Dettori signs off with Ascot winner
The bulldozers and diggers start their work today as the building of a new £185m grandstand complex begins.
Ascot aficionados wanting a souvenir will be able to pick up a lump of genuine Ascot turf from Car Park No.1 next week.
But the winner’s post in the unsaddling enclosure has already been claimed by Dettori, who wants to keep it as a permanent reminder of his happy times at the track, particularly the unforgettable 1996 afternoon when he rode his ’Magnificent Seven’.
Godolphin’s blue silks - led by Dettori’s mount Badminton and followed home by Pearl Grey and Kerrin McEvoy - were carried back to that post yesterday in the Miles and Morrison October Stakes.
Badminton was making a belated debut for Godolphin but oozed class once asked for her effort by Dettori, and raced readily clear inside the final furlong to score by three lengths.
Sent off the well-backed 11-4 favourite, Badminton was having her first race for 360 days having last been seen on the racecourse when finishing third in the Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket.
“It is a great result for Godolphin with our last runners at Ascot before the track is closed,” said trainer Saeed bin Suroor.
“Badminton has had a lot of problems. Every time we thought that we could run her she would pick up something else.
“Her last two pieces of work were very good, though, and we knew she had a lot of class from her form last year. We will now look for a Group race with her.”
McEvoy had already taken the opportunity to ride his first-ever winner at the track when Wise Dennis stormed up the centre of the track to land the Riggs Bank Nursery.
Alan Jarvis’s charge, sent off a 10-1 shot, ran on well and never looked like being caught after hitting the front in the final furlong, defeating favourite Rebel Rebel by a length and three-quarters.
The latter, who had sweated up badly before the race, started slowly before doing his best work at the end of the race while Sky Crusader (40-1) was a further three lengths back in third.
Jarvis said of the winner: “He’s been a very unlucky horse. He should have won at Haydock last time and I think he will be a nice horse next year.
“Hopefully he can win one of the big handicaps as he’s got a nice turn of foot.”
Jarvis admitted that with this success providing him with just his 12th winner of the campaign, 2004 would not go down as a great year in his training career.
But he explained: “We have actually got a lot of nice two-year-olds this year, but for one reason or another we haven’t been able to get them to the racecourse.
“We moved to a new yard and it took time for all of us to adjust, but it does mean that we will have a really nice team to look forward to next season.
“Kieren Fallon calls it ’horse heaven’ and it really is a great place with superb facilities. We have got a self-contained indoor swimming pool and five different types of gallops.
“We have also just got planning permission for another 30 boxes to add to the 50 we have now.”
