Forgiveness can be beautiful, and in Delacroix and Ryan Moore’s last strides victory over the favourite Ombudsman in this Eclipse, desperately dramatic too.
The last time we had seen the pair, they had started favourites for the Derby but after being bumped around at the top of the hill they trailed in a disappointing ninth. The irony of yesterday is that for a long while it looked as if they had got themselves impossibly trapped once again.
After jumping out fast and securing a good position on the rail behind the French horse Sosie and the Irish horse Hotazhell, Moore found himself imprisoned as Christophe Soumillon and the hard pulling Ruling Court came up his inside and then William Buick moved Ombudsman outside to block any escape.
As Maxime Guyon set steady, full twelve and half second sections on a ears-pricked Sosie up front with all five rivals poised behind him, the analogy of a horse race as a high speed version of an Agatha Christie crime mystery has never been more exact. All the possibles were in the dining room, we thought we knew their potential, but in 40 seconds rather than 200 pages, we would know the result. And for a long time, it looked the least expected.
For a while chief suspect Ombudsman came up to lead at the quarter mile pole, Delacroix had been denied every exit and was now on the outside and plum last. Some sharp soul snapped up 170-1 on the exchanges as last month’s Derby flop set out for atonement. It looked impossible but this is a talented horse, a master jockey and of course the Sandown hill always takes a toll on the leaders.
So Ombudsman clocked the last two furlongs in 11.93 and 12.77 seconds whilst Delacroix closed sharply in 11.91 and 12.39. The differences may seem innocuous on the page but out on the still green Sandown turf they made for a cheetah like burst on a fleeing prey.
Half a furlong out Delacroix could surely not do it, but as the post flashed towards them, Moore and he made certain of their kill. Ruling Court and the wrong headline maker Oisin Murphy ran on after a troubled passage to be a length and half away third, just pipping Delacroix’s stable mate Camille Pissaro for third with Hotazhell and Sosie completing the file.
It was Moore’s fifth win in the Eclipse and Aidan O’Brien’s 9th but a first success at Group One level for Delacroix. He is a long way from the greatest Eclipse winners but being by the super sire Dubawi out of the brilliant mare Tepin he is one of the best bred. For Coolmore this is crucial but for the racing game the thrill of this galloping mystery’s solution is what mattered most.
For this million pound event was well worthy of the 150 year history which Sandown is celebrating this summer. But whether the course or the sport can maintain such a position is very much another question.
The big stand, opened to much acclaim in 1973, is now showing its age, and the likelihood of the money being available for its refurbishment will recede even further into the distance if the government raises the 15% tax on racing bets to the 21% levied on totally dissimilar wagers on casino and slots. With the numbers of horses in training in decline and betting in freefall because of the well-intentioned but dumbly implemented “affordability checks,” it is no exaggeration to say that racing in Britain faces an existential crisis.
All this is easy to forget amid the glamour of Eclipse Day so it’s good to welcome a short video that beautifully captures the warmth at the heart of the game. Shot by Arena Racing it features the legendary hurdler Paisely Park and his heroic unsighted owner Andrew Gemmill and all those associated with the horse in trainer Emma Lavelle’s stable. It is entitled “Thanks To The Thoroughbred” and the script is the lines of Ronald Duncan’s famous “Ode To The Horse” spoken consecutively by everyone from owner to groom to box driver to vet.
The poem starts with the great question: “Where in the world can man find nobility without pride, friendship without envy, beauty without vanity ?” Not always in Westminster perhaps, but it is to be hoped that our legislators might take note of how much the thoroughbred game can still give. If they don’t what Delacroix did yesterday would just be a glorious wave of an ebbing tide.