Nearly always a thriller, Newbury’s Lockinge Stakes, instituted in 1958 and a Group 1 race since 1995, is an ever-welcome signpost to the Flat season. The Guineas Classics have started the three-year-old stories; the Lockinge shows us which older horses will be battling for supremacy over a mile. For four-year-olds and upwards, it has been won by great horses like Brigadier Gerard, and I will never forget Frankel scorching away from his field to win by five lengths in 2012.
This year’s running promised a special quality, perhaps the best for decades, with a jockeys merry-go-round adding to the intrigue. Notable Speech had won last year’s 2000 Guineas and Sussex Stakes, Rosallion the Irish equivalent along with the St James’s Palace Stakes at Ascot. Fallen Angel had won the Irish 1000 Guineas while Tam-fana was widely judged to have been one of the unluckiest losers of the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket in 2024.
Dancing Gemini had been a close second in the 2024 French 2000 Guineas, and it was Roger Teal’s Camelot colt who started favourite after two early-season victories. Dancing Gemini would have been a highly popular victory for the Lambourn trainer who had a nightmare season of second places in 2024. Rosallion probably represented the highest class, but had been 333 days off games following a respiratory infection. Dancing Gemini led into the final furlong but was collared at the end by Lead Artist, trained by John and Thady Gosden for Juddmonte and ridden by Oisin Murphy, who came home the winner by a neck after having been backed down from 18-1 to 17-2.
Rosallion and Notable Speech took third and fourth places, and the joy is that all four could continue to clash in races such as the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot and the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood, when for my money a fully fit Rosallion will take all the beating. As his trainer Richard Hannon puts it: ‘There’s only one way to get match-fit and that’s by playing in matches.’
There was minor consolation for the Hannon yard when Aramram won the six-furlong Hong Kong Jockey Club Handicap after four close second places, and as he rushed to put on a tie for the TV cameras the Marlborough trainer was markedly bullish, saying: ‘He’s relaxed, he’s a gent and he’s a very good sprinter. Whatever we take him to at Royal Ascot – and I mean whatever from handicaps to however big we want to get – he’ll run well in it.’ Clearly one to note.
In his customarily magisterial post-race briefing after the Lockinge, John Gosden explained that when Lead Artist was well beaten in his previous race this season at Sandown he had been running on ground that had been watered for the sake of jump racers. ‘He’s a powerful horse with a lot of speed. He came with a nice run and blew up at the furlong post. If a horse is struggling in the ground, a jockey will look after them. The great thing is he got a race under his belt, which is what he needed. It tightened him up.’
Ironically, the jockey whom he praised for looking after Lead Artist that day and who had ridden him in his previous seven races was Kieran Shoemark, demoted as the Gosdens’ number-one jockey after failing to win this year’s 2000 Guineas on Field of Gold.
This year’s running promised a special quality, with a jockeys merry-go-round adding to the intrigue
In the Lockinge, Shoemark rode Fallen Angel for Karl Burke. Oisin Murphy, whose first Group 1 victory it was in Juddmonte’s pink and green colours, had agreed to ride Lead Artist only because Tamfana had been expected to run on a different day in France. ‘Once on a Juddmonte horse,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t going to give that up’, and Gosden praised him for a peach of a ride. Both Rossa Ryan, who was snapped up for Tamfana by David Menuisier, and the currently luckless Shoemark had ridden Dancing Gemini to his earlier victories this season but found themselves passed over by connections when Ryan Moore became available.
It truly is tough at the top, but it can be tough lower down the pecking order too. In 2021 Benoit de la Sayette, attached to the Gosdens, just beat Harry Davies to be champion apprentice. Since then Davies has been getting top rides for the likes of Hugo Palmer and Simon and Ed Crisford, while young Benoit has almost disappeared from sight, partnering too many handicap no-hopers. I noted that the Gosdens had put him up on three at Newbury the day before, one of them a winner, as well as giving him a Godolphin horse to ride in the Dante, so maybe things are looking up.
John Gosden sympathises. ‘It happens when these good apprentices lose their claims,’ he said. ‘Without that 7lb, 5lb or 3lb advantage they lose their appeal to a lot of trainers.’
Perhaps Benoit could take it as an omen that when I raised the question, the example given of another young rider who had worked his way through just such a setback attached to the Gosden yard was one William Buick.
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