There might be just one race left in Enable’s career, following what seemed a significant hint from John Gosden that the great mare might not run again before the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in October. The Newmarket trainer reported early signs that she is recovering well from Saturday’s King George, in which she prevailed after a thrilling struggle with Crystal Ocean, but it must have been a taxing race on rain-softened ground, which may induce caution in her connections as to how she is campaigned for the rest of the year.
The established plan prior to Saturday had been for Enable to run at York next month in either the Yorkshire Oaks or the Juddmonte International. The incentives to take her there include the fact that her owner, Khalid Abdullah, sponsors the International and his spokesman, Lord Grimthorpe, is chairman of York racecourse. But all parties agree that the key aim is to try to make her the first horse to win the Arc for a third time.
“She’ll tell us what she wants to do,” Gosden said in a phone-in interview on Racing TV on Sunday morning. “She’s very expressive. We talked about it yesterday, actually, with Teddy Grimthorpe as well, whether we go to York or whether we just go straight to the Arc. I think we’ll start making those decisions in the next week.
“I think the key thing is whether she goes to York or whether we do the other thing, just freshen her up, and she runs well fresh, and bring her up to the Arc without having taken any risks in going anywhere else.”
The allusions to risks and to Enable running well when fresh suggest that Gosden is minded to skip a trip to York, which would require the mare to race again less than four weeks after her Ascot exertions. Cutting out York and going straight to Longchamp would allow her 10 weeks between races. William Hill was the first bookmaker to react, pushing Enable out to a top price of 11-8 for the Juddmonte International, while other firms still have her at odds-on.
On the other hand, Enable is apparently showing no signs of her King George success under Frankie Dettori having taken any sort of toll. “She’s about 25 yards from me, having a pick of grass,” Gosden said. “She got back last night and ate all of her feed up.
“She races more like an old pro now rather than the youthful exuberance of her three-year-old year, she’s a little more measured in everything, I think. She seems in good order this morning. Mr Dettori came round and he looks pretty tired, actually, more tired than her.”
As the trainer acknowledged, Dettori did as much as he could to minimise the stresses of the race on his mount, using his whip just once behind the saddle. “I think he probably felt he had it under control,” Gosden reflected. “You want to keep the horse balanced, that’s very important … If your horse is balanced and stretching, you’re not really going to do much good by giving them a slap, you’re much better stretching with the horse and keeping them balanced. He knows her well, she was in full flight and he wasn’t going to disturb that.”
Gosden was shocked during his contribution to the Luck On Sunday programme to learn that Roaring Lion, trained by him to win four Group Ones in a row last year, has had emergency surgery at a stud in New Zealand. The grey was found to be suffering from colic soon after being released from quarantine on Saturday, having recently travelled from Britain, and has reportedly made “a favourable recovery in the first 24 hours post-surgery”, according to an official at Cambridge Stud.