ASCOT, England // There was no Golden Horn, but Postponed and Eagle Top produced such a pulsating set-to in the final stages of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes yesterday that the Derby and Eclipse winner was scarcely missed.
At the winning post there was only a nose in it, but on a day when UAE-owned horses dominated the undercard, Andrea Atzeni managed to eke out just enough to get Sheikh Mohammed Obaid’s Postponed ahead when it mattered most.
Romsdal, owned by Godolphin, was third.
It was the biggest win for Sheikh Mohammed Obaid since High-Rise, also trained in Newmarket by Luca Cumani, scooped the English Derby in 1998.
Those 17 years without a major European Group 1 must have made this win taste sweet, but it was sweeter still that Postponed is by Dubawi, the influential sire that Sheikh Mohammed owns.
“Truly, I did not think he had won,” he said.
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“He went down by a nose and came back, so he is a brave horse. He surprised me. He surprised everybody.”
Cumani had previously felt that Postponed may not act on soft ground. After a deluge of rain on Friday and in the early hours of yesterday morning, the going at Ascot was soft.
Now that Postponed has proved he can be fully effective on the surface, he will be trained for a crack at Treve and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris in October. He will also stay in training next year.
Whether Golden Horn will join him in France is another matter after trainer John Gosden scratched Golden Horn hours before the race.
Gosden said he did not feel that Golden Horn would handle the going around the bend into the straight and will keep his charge for the International at York next month.
“To be quite honest, I think it is the wrong thing for the horse (to run),” Gosden said. “You don’t normally get 35mm of rain in 12 hours, it is absurd. If we had 15-20mm we would be running. It is not what I want to subject him to at this stage of his career.”
As a result of the scratch, Golden Horn’s jockey Frankie Dettori switched to Eagle Top, also trained by Gosden, which left the retiring Richard Hughes without a seat when the music stopped.
Dettori anchored his mount out the back as soon as the gates opened, while William Buick set the pace on Romsdal.
Postponed was on Romsdal’s outside, while Snow Sky remained on the inner for Pat Smullen.
As the field climbed uphill, Dettori moved off the rail and plotted a course around the outside. Turning for home, Romsdal still led but Postponed quickly picked him up and surged in to the lead.
Eagle Top was powering down the middle of the track, and with 100 metres to go the two horses were locked in an embrace that carried them across the line.
“All the way up the straight I got my hopes up, and then I thought the other one had got it,” Cumani said. “I thought we were beaten. I’m naturally a pessimist and I’d prefer to be surprised favourably, rather than unfavourably.”
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