Goodwood glory for Charlton ace

Roger Charlton served up an ace as Third Set demolished a competitive field in a dramatic renewal of the £150,000 Totesport Mile at Goodwood.

The 5-2 favourite, owned by tennis-loving John Livock, became the shortest-priced winner in the 20-year history of the race when scampering three lengths clear in the closing stages to complete a valuable hat-trick.

However, with Jimmy Quinn electing to race up with the pace, he missed the chaos which ensued in behind as Drumfire clipped heels and crashed to the floor bringing down Blades Girl and Uhoomagoo in the process.

Their respective jockeys were all injured to varying degrees with Ted Durcan nursing a bruised ankle, Darryll Holland suffering a suspected broken thumb and Joe Fanning taken to Chichester Hospital for precautionary chest X-rays.

For Third Set, victory in a moderate Newmarket handicap three weeks ago was followed up by a valuable win in the totesport.com International at Ascot last weekend.

And once he made the cut for the feature on day four of Glorious Goodwood, he was well supported in the ring and success always looked like coming his way as he took his earnings for the last three weeks to almost £200,000.

Charlton said: “We never thought we would go to Newmarket and win there, go to Ascot and win there and come here and win again.

“You enter big races and don’t expect to get in and when we declared for Ascot I said to the owner I don’t think the ground will be right, but we will declare and get our money back.

“Instead he gets in, and the ground is right and the rest is history.

“People have asked if we had a scheme but we didn’t – he is just a nice horse.

“He doesn’t lose much weight when he runs, he doesn’t need much work and he seems very uncomplicated.”

Quinn added: “It’s great isn’t it? He’s a jockey’s dream as there are no snags with him.

“He’s a beautiful, big horse and we had an ideal draw (20) there.

“We sat in behind the speed and he travelled round here great. Two and a half furlongs down I gave him a little dig and kept kicking all the way to the line.

“I had to take the gap when it came and although that was half a furlong too soon, I didn’t want to miss my chance.

“When I got through I sat on him, let him fill his lungs and aimed for the lollipop – that was my goal.

“A horse like this is not just a lightweight’s dream but anyone’s dream.

“I’ve been riding a long time but it is a dream to get on a horse like this that can be so good twice in a week.”

Humungous was awkward leaving the stalls and suffered trouble in running before coming through to take second under Ryan Moore, with King of Argos two and a half lengths adrift in third.

Charles Egerton trains the runner-up, and he said: “He nearly unseated Ryan coming out of the stalls and then took a while to get going as he’s such a long-striding horse.

“The gaps didn’t come and he couldn’t get through but that’s the nature of this track.”

Matt Cumani, assistant to King Of Argos’ trainer Ed Dunlop, said: “He ran very well, he’s coming on every time he runs.

“He is weak over a mile so he would prefer seven furlongs in future.”

Crucially for Durcan he will be fit to ride Oaks winner Light Shift in tomorrow’s Blue Square Nassau Stakes, and he explained what happened in the incident just over a furlong out.

He said: “The horse in front of me hit the floor; I was right behind him and unable to swerve around.

“I ended up going over him and it was just a pile-up as the horse behind me ploughed into us.

“I could see what was happening ahead of me but there was no room.

“There were loads of runners and the race had really started in earnest and everyone was looking for room. The beaten horses were dropping back too which was half of the issue.”