Coroebus joins illustrious company with St James’s Palace Stakes win
He may have been weak in the betting and he may have been fortunate to hold on in the end but the record books will list Coroebus (3 c Dubawi – First Victory by Teofilo) among illustrious company after he landed the St James’s Palace Stakes (Gr 1, 1m) yesterday.
In beating Lusail (Mehmas) by a head in a bunch finish, the Charlie Appleby-trained colt became the eighth horse this century to complete the English 2,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m) and St James’s Palace Stakes double, sitting alongside the likes of Rock Of Gibraltar (Danehill), Frankel (Galileo) and Dawn Approach (New Approach).
However, the result won’t tell the full story with Muljoom (Caravaggio), himself a Guineas winner, this time the German version, only finishing fourth, another short head behind the third home My Prospero (Iffraaj), looking a desperately unlucky loser as he flashed home under Cieren Fallon having suffered a troublesome passage up the far rail.
But if Fallon’s path up the straight was the stuff of nightmares, the one enjoyed by William Buick on Coroebus was the sweetest of sweet dreams as his rivals let him have a clear go up the rails.
“You have to enjoy these good horses and I’m very privileged to be able to get on them, but at the same time it’s a case of getting the job done, and it was one of those races where it was tricky,” Buick said.
“In the straight, I had to go for the rail and there was enough room. I could have come back a stride and gone around them, which I was prepared to do, but when Pat Dobbs [on Lusail] went on and didn’t go to the fence, it was a very natural place for me to go.
“He’s got everything you could ask for a racehorse.”
Having traded as short as 1-2 earlier in the week, Coroebus drifted all the way out to odds against before returning the 10-11 market leader.
The second foal out of the Group 3 winner First Victory (Teofilo), herself a half-sister to the dual Dubai World Cup (Gr 1, 2000m) winner Thunder Snow (Helmet), Coroebus has now won four of his five races, his sole defeat coming when a neck behind Royal Patronage (Wootton Bassett) when second in last season’s Royal Lodge Stakes (Gr 2, 1m).
A trip to Glorious Goodwood and a potential clash with the unbeaten Baaeed (Sea The Stars) in the Sussex Stakes (Gr 1, 1m) is now on the cards according to Appleby.
“We spoke beforehand about having Baaeed and Coroebus together and the Sussex is always a fantastic race, we all know with the three-year-olds and the older horses taking each other on,” he said.
“We wanted to be confident in doing that off the back of a win today and I think that’s still very much in the conversation. As always, we’ll let the dust settle and I’ll have conversations with His Highness [Sheikh Mohammed] and the team and we’ll firm those plans up. But on the evidence of what we’ve seen today, he deserves to be there for sure.”