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Grandera asserts Godolphin's pre-eminence in Irish Champion
Godolphin's stranglehold on the World Series
Racing Championship 2002 grew ever tighter at Leopardstown on September
7 as Grandera, this season's standard-bearer in chief, edged
out Hawk Wing in a thrilling climax to the Ireland The Food
Island Irish Champion Stakes.
As was the case last year when the odds-on
favourite and local champion Galileo was floored in the last
strides by Godolphin's dual WSRC champion Fantastic Light,
this season's Champion Stakes was another brilliantly tactical race
between the two of racing's greatest heavyweights.
Ridden by 'the big race king' Mick Kinane in the dark blue livery
of John Magnier's colossal Coolmore breeding operation was the 8-11
race favourite, Hawk Wing, twice a Group 1 winner but also
twice the runner-up in Classics this term. This American-bred three-year-old
by Woodman was trained at Ballydoyle in the southern recesses
of County Tipperary by Aidan O'Brien, already an immortal of the
Turf at just 32 years of age.
In the opposite corner stood the often
nervous but undeniably talented chestnut four-year-old Grandera,
carrying the royal blue silks of the Dubai-based Godolphin operation,
the brainchild of one the most influential men that racing has ever
known, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. With well over 100
Group 1 successes to call upon, the irrepressible Frankie Dettori
sat astride Grandera, the 5/2 second favourite.
These were the two main players duelling
for the £625,000 winner's cheque but there were other estimable
protagonists: the shock Irish Oaks winner Margarula trained
by Jim Bolger, Sir Michael Stoute's dual Group 2 victor, No Excuse
Needed, and the less brightly decorated Common World
trained by Gerard Butler in England.
And there were more. With race tactics
set to again decide the outcome dual Group 1 runner-up Sholokhov
was also fielded by the Ballydoyle stable - which was only just
emerging from a sustained bout of coughing - to force a strong pace
for Hawk Wing. Godolphin, however, maintained their 'other'
challenger, the Group 1 winner Best Of The Best (not to be
confused with the pluralised and now retired Hong Kong sprinting
stalwart!), was running on his merits.
The stalls released and it was Sholokhov that shot clear
15 lengths clear. Strong pace? It was like a Grand Prix. Soon, three
separate races were being staged: Sholokhov out on his own,
Best Of The Best tracking him in his own time and Hawk
Wing and Grandera settling a remote third and fourth
- and this was as they straightened up for the judge!
Inevitably, the "bunny" came
back to the field leaving Best Of The Best to go full-blooded
for the wire, hitting the front with 200 metres. But the big two
were already bearing down on him. Kinane flailed Hawk Wing
and got him to poke his in front of Godolphin's second string with
50 metres to race in an apparently decisive move. But Grandera's
momentum was greatest of all. He too clawed past Best Of The
Best and for a handful of strides there was nothing to separate
the market leaders. In the very last bound, Grandera asserted
and crossed the line a short head in front of the home favourite
to vanquish Irish hopes again. It was Godolphin's fourth win in
this race in five years.
Best Of The Best finished third
a neck back. Sholokhov was fourth, six lengths further adrift.
Thanks to a win in the Singapore Airlines International Cup and
fifth-placed efforts in the Audemars Piguet QEII Cup at Sha Tin
and in the King George at Ascot, Grandera's success consolidated
his advantage at the head of the WRSC rankings on 28 points, 16
ahead of the trailing pack. A fourth straight World Series crown
for Godolphin? It appears likely.
This million dollars race has long been
considered as Ireland most important event in that country's racing
calendar. In fact, in the 2001 running, this historic race was sponsored
for the first time by Ireland The Food Island, a food and drinks
company.
For years this 10 furlongs or 2000
meters race has consistently produced many top-class winners and
in recent memory the likes of Daylami, Swain, Pilsudski and
Giants Causeway support this claim. In fact, the most recent
running of this great race saw two marvelous thoroughbred stars
went through a long stretch drive, with the oldest of the two Fantastic
Light prevailed by a head over the 2001 Epsom Derby hero Galileo.
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TV Broadcast
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Irish Champion Stakes will be run
on Saturday, 7 September at Leopardstown racecourse.
Hong Kong racing fans will be able to watch this race,
the 7th leg of the World Racing Championship Series
2002 via the giant Diamond Vision Screen/LED Screen
and the closed-circuit television systems at the Shatin
and Happy Valley racecourses, after the last race (post
time 10:35 pm) that night.
ATV World Channel and Cable TV Channel
82 will also broadcast this International Group 1 race
live at the following times:
ATV (World Channel): 7th of
September 2002, a live telecast after the last race
at Shatin as a part of the racing programme, "Trackside".
Cable TV (Channel 82): 7th
of September 2002, after the last race at Shatin as
part of Cable TV live racing programme.
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