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Will he stay the Derby distance? As Oxx acknowledged, you can often read pedigrees either way and we won’t know until the day. But Sea The Stars is a half-brother to the 2001 Derby winner Galileo out of a winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and his trainer reckons there is a fair chance he will. ‘If we thought he had no chance we wouldn’t be running.’
That is good enough for me. John Oxx is not one of those trainers who throws numbers at races hoping for the best. It is one of my racecourse rules that horses he sends abroad are always worth a look. I had backed Delegator, so admirably and openly prepared by the straightforward Brian Meehan, to win the first Classic. But an unbeaten John Oxx colt had to be the saver and at a generous 8–1 he certainly proved that.
It had been one of those days. Mohathab, my selection in the first, was virtually pulled up and poor Chief Editor, my choice in the fourth, tragically suffered a heart attack. But this time of year there are always lessons to be learned. Prince Khalid Abdulla’s racing manager, Teddy Grimthorpe, told us after Confront had won the first carrying top weight of 9st 10lb that they had liked him a lot at two. After disappointing runs at three with no obvious physical cause they ‘reached for the scissors’ and poor Confront lost his wedding tackle. It has clearly had the desired effect, and while the handicapper may now force them to run him in Listed and Group races he looks well up to it.
Before the sprint Henry Candy, another in the Oxx mould who does not mistake his geese for swans but who knows a good ’un when he has it, was telling me that life can be hard for three-year-old sprinters, especially when they have to take on a Group One winner like Borderlescott running without a penalty. I therefore left his Amour Propre unbacked, only to see him scorch home at 7–1 in the Group Three Palace House Stakes, with Borderlescott in third.
Afterwards I asked Henry how his latest speedster compared with Airwave and Kyllachy, both past recommendations in this space. He is, he replied, just as fast as them. ‘He is just a very, very quick five-furlong horse with a wonderfully straightforward temperament, very competitive but very sensible.’ Do not forget those words, although Henry added the warning, ‘Wherever we go now the Budapest Bullet will be waiting,’ a reference to the fact that the best horse Hungary has ever produced, the speedy Overdose, will be coming over this summer to contest Britain’s big sprints. When they meet, watch out for scorch marks on the turf.
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