Category: Big Races

What is the Beverley Bullet?

Not to be confused with the horse of the same name, an eight-year-old gelding trained by Lawrence Mullaney, the Beverley Bullet, or Beverley Bullet Sprint Stakes, is a Listed, five-furlong race, run at Beverley Racecourse in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Inaugurated in 2004, the Beverley Bullet is open to horses aged three years and upwards and, even in its relatively short history, has been won by one or two horses that have gone on to victory at the highest, Group One level. The 2011 winner, Tangerine Trees, won the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp on his very next start, while the 2016 winner, Alpha Delphini won the Nunthorpe Stakes at York two seasons later.

The five-furlong course at Beverley is idiosyncratic insofar that it is on the rise throughout, making it a test of stamina as well as speed, particularly when the going is soft. Furthermore, the supposedly ‘straight’ course features a right-handed dog-leg which, in turn, creates the most pronounced draw bias, towards low numbers, in the whole country. Indeed, seven of the last ten winners of the Beverley Bullet were drawn in stall four or lower; the other three winners, Tangerine Trees in 2011, Take Cover in 2018 and Dakota Gold in 2020 were drawn 9, 9 and 8, respectively.

Did Sea Pigeon win the Ebor Handicap?

At the time of the retirement, as a 12-year-old, in March, 1982, Sea Pigeon was described as

‘probably the best known horse after Arkle and Red Rum’. He is best remembered for winning the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in 1980 and 1981, but arguably his most memorable victory came in the Ebor Handicap at York in 1979.

Saddled with top weight of 10 stone and ridden by his regular hurdles partner, Jonjo O’Neill, Sea Pigeon was sent off the longest-priced of three runners trained by Peter Easterby, at 18/1. O’Neill had actually broken three toes in his left foot the previous week, but ‘hoodwinked’ the racecourse doctor by presenting his uninjured right foot for inspection and was passed fit to ride.

In any event, Sea Pigeon – on whom, according to Easterby, ‘you couldn’t come too late’ – hit the front, travelling easily, with a furlong to run and looked like winning comfortably. However, he stopped quickly and, with O’Neill dropping his hands in the closing stages, was tackled close home by the 3-year-old Donegal Prince, to whom he was conceding 40lb. After a nailbiting wait, Sea Pigeon was called the winner, by a short head, thereby smashing the previous weight-carrying record for the Ebor Handicap.

When did Lester Piggott ride his first Royal Ascot winner?

In a riding career spanning six decades, Lester Piggott rode 4,493 winners, including 30 English Classic winners and won the Flat Jockeys’ Championship eleven times, including eight years running between 1964 and 1971. Coincidentally, eleven was also the number of times Piggott won the highlight of Royal Ascot, the historic and coveted Gold Cup, including a notable hat-trick on Sagaro in 1975, 1976 and 1977.

Piggott not only remains the most successful jockey in the history of the Gold Cup but, by the proverbial ‘country mile’, the most successful jockey in the history of Royal Ascot. Of course, at various points during his career, Piggott enjoyed profitable associations with such luminaries of the training profession as Sir Noel Murless, Vincent O’Brien and Sir Henry Cecil. Nevertheless, his astonishing record of 116 winners, achieved long before the extension of Royal Ascot to five days in 2005, is unlikely to be beaten.

Piggott rode his first Royal Ascot winner, Malka’s Boy, trained by Walter Nightingall, in the Wokingham Stakes on June 20, 1952, as a 16-year-old, making all the running to win by 3 lengths. For the record, he rode his last Royal Ascot winner, College Chapel, trained by Vincent O’Brien, in the Cork and Orrery Stakes, now the Diamond Jubilee Stakes, on June 17, 1993, at the age of 58. The ‘Long Fella’ retired for the second, and final, time two years later.

How many times has Frankie Dettori won the Derby?

The short answer is that Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori has won the Derby twice, on Authorized in 2007 and Golden Horn in 2015. However, those facts alone do not tell the full story. The likeable Italian first rode in the Derby in 1992, finishing a remote sixteenth on Pollen Count, owned by Sheikh Mohammed and trained by John Gosden. Thereafter, though, he developed a Derby ‘hoodoo’, which he would not end until 15 years later. Indeed, Dettori had won all the other English Classic races at least twice apiece before winning the Derby for the first time in 2007.

When he did so, Dettori did so in style, storming clear in the closing stages to win, impressively, by 5 lengths. Backed as if defeat was out of the question, Authorized was sent off at odds of 5/4, thereby becoming the shortest-priced winner since Shergar in 1981. However, the race was not without anxiety for favourite backers, as Dettori sat well off the pace in the early stages. Trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam said afterwards, ‘Frankie was probably a bit further back than I wanted him to be, but Authorized has got so much class.’

Dettori would not win the Derby again until 2015, by which time he had lost his retainer with Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation and been banned for six months after testing positive for cocaine while riding in France. Nevertheless, he oozed confidence on 13/8 favourite Golden Horn, trained by John Gosden, sweeping past stable companion Jack Hobbs with a furlong to run to win, comfortably, by 3½ lengths.

 

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