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.
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