Our man at the track reflects on more Ascot glory for the Gosden team as Trawlerman wins the Gold Cup.
“We knew the only chance we had was to get him down on his knees at the two furlong marker and turn it into a brawl, and that’s what happened.”
“The only way we were going to win was to just say 'if you’re going to beat me, you’re going to know you’ve been in a race because we’re going two-and-a-half miles at a proper gallop'.”
The first quote came from Aidan O’Brien after Jan Brueghel eyeballed Calandagan and brushed him aside in the Coronation Cup.
The second via John Gosden following Trawlerman’s all-the-way success in Thursday’s Gold Cup.
They’re basically saying the same thing. They’d identified potential weaknesses in a key rival beforehand and were out to expose it. At Epsom it was Calandagan’s stamina and potential battling qualities – and on a sweltering hot Ascot afternoon it was the staying prowess of O’Brien’s own Illinois that came under the microscope.
He was the new kid on the block in the Group One, sent there to cover the giant hole left by the retirement of last year’s winner, the brilliant Kyprios.
He was a length too good for Trawlerman that day but for the Gosden team, and winning rider William Buick, that defeat was a case of lesson learned.
“When we ran him in the Gold Cup last year we went a bit steady,” Gosden senior reflected. “Then in the Henry II this year we were spot on. I said to William today, the thing is use your stride, you judge the pace. He said from four out he was going to notch it up, notch it up and notch it up.
“If they stay, they are going to have to stay better than we are. If you’ve waited, they can come and do you. Trawlerman is an out-and-out galloper. I take nothing away from the second, he's a fabulous horse, but a truly-run two-and-a-half miles is not his game. Falsely run, he'd be fine, but not truly run.”
