Enable beats Magical in Yorkshire Oaks

Friday 23 August 2019, 7:36am

Frankie Dettori has seen plenty in his long and illustrious career, but even he has been reduced to tears after Enable won her 10th Group One race in the Yorkshire Oaks.

The undoubted star of the past three Flat seasons, the John Gosden-trained five-year-old has proven her versatility over 10 furlongs (2000m) and 12 and won in England, Ireland, France and America.

Her only defeat in 14 races to date - with one more to come barring accidents - was on her three-year-old return at Newbury behind stablemate Shutter Speed.

Thursday's race was her British swan song, because her whole campaign this year has been built around winning the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe for a third time, something no horse has ever done.

Dettori could not hide his emotions.

"It's embarrassing crying on TV, but I was crying with happiness!" he said.

"She felt great and she's had a great send-off in front of the English people.

"I was always in control today. The temptation in the past on her has always been to kick a bit too soon but today I thought I'd let Ryan (Moore, on Magical) come to me before I kicked.

"When I gave her a little tap she put her head down, and I knew then I'd won.

"In fairness we wanted an exercise canter. But Magical made a race of it, because she's very solid.

"This year we've had a better preparation for the Arc. But we've still got seven weeks, so it will be sleepless nights until then.

"It's amazing, because she had a hard race in the King George and she was a bit tense today because of the crowd, but in the race she was fantastic.

"She's uncomplicated. She has a great presence and a massive engine. I love her.

"I've never ridden a horse like her in my life. To have her longevity is incredible. Golden Horn was a great horse - but I only had him for a year."

For Gosden, the race could not have gone better.

"We discussed it. She was drawn one, and there was no point complicating it and disappointing her. We should let her go and do her own thing," Gosden said.

"Magical came to her, but she found a lot in the last 400 metres. To that extent she showed her class and it was a good performance.

"She's not a filly that likes to be let all the way down, so between the King George and the Arc was too big a gap. She prefers to be let down a little and then brought back up for a race."

– PAA

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »