Enable rules in historic King George romp
The Queen may have missed her regular visit to Ascot last month, but the queen of the turf lit up the royal racecourse yesterday when Enable (Nathaniel) registered a history-making win in the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr 1, 1m 4f).
In beating Sovereign (Galileo) by a cosy five and a half lengths, Enable became the first horse in the 69-year history of the race to win it three times, took her own personal tally to 11 successes at the highest level and saw her prize-money close in on the £11 million mark.
“She’s unbelievable,” said Frankie Dettori, who was winning the race for a seventh time, taking him level with the legendary Lester Piggott as the King George’s winning-most rider. “I love her so much. My favourite girl!”
As expected Sovereign took up the role of hare under William Buick, with Dettori aboard 4-9 favourite Enable, and Ryan Moore on Japan (Galileo), happy to bide their time half a dozen lengths or so away.
Turning for home Buick was soon hard at work on board last year’s Irish Derby (Gr 1, 1m 4f) winner, with Dettori, in the rain sodden silks of Juddmonte Farms, still to play his hand.
Cruising to the front, the three-time champion jockey looked around for the expected challenge of Japan, only to find Moore’s mount toiling. At that point it was all over as a contest and the John Gosden-trained six-year-old strolled clear to win with goodness knows how much in hand.
“John has done an unbelievable job to keep her going,” Dettori added in the post-race celebrations. “Three King George’s has never been done before, and now we’ll try the impossible and go for three Arcs.”
A third victory in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (Gr 1, 2400m) may have proved beyond Enable when she finished second behind Waldgeist (Galileo) in the Longchamp showpiece last season, but the bookmakers expect her to right that wrong this time round, cutting her to 5-2 favourite for Paris in October.
While the ease of Enable’s success may have shocked onlookers, Gosden, who was winning the race for the fifth time, was not among that number.
“She’s really trained beautifully for this race and is back in top order, there’s no doubt about that.” he said. “We’ve been thrilled with her at home. I was expecting to see that but life can be full of disappointment.
“I remember great horses like Swain and Dahlia, those who won it twice, so to come back from injury and win it three times and do it as a three, five and six-year-old, she’s some race mare.”
Enable’s sire Nathaniel (Galileo), himself a King George winner for Gosden when triumphant in the race back in 2011 as a three-year-old, stood at Newsells Park for a fee of £25,000 in 2020.