Canford Cliffs wins Sussex Stakes in style
Richard Hannon had said that Canford Cliffs could be the best horse that he has ever trained and the horse proved it.
Having shown himself to be the best of the three-year-old milers, Canford Cliffs took on the older division for the first time in the Group One Sussex Stakes at Goodwood and was equally dominant. Richard Hughes is the type of jockey who rarely looks fazed, even when Canford Cliffs was reluctant to load into the stalls.
The talk before the race had been whether the seven-runner field, in which Aidan O’Brien saddled main rival Rip Van Winkle and two others, could become a tactical game. Hughes negated that prospect by deliberately missing the break on Canford Cliffs, who was at the back of the field as O’Brien’s pacemaker, Encompassing, set the early gallop.
He was 10 lengths clear of Rip Van Winkle at one point, on whom Ryan Moore was deputising for suspended stable jockey Johnny Murtagh, but then Moore committed his horse for an early strike for the line. It looked to be a winning manoeuvre as he took the best part of two lengths out of Canford Cliffs. But Hughes, who is riding with supreme confidence, brought Canford Cliffs through in the final furlong with a well-timed challenge to win by a margin of a neck. The result may look like it was a frantic finish but there will have been 10-length winners who will have worked harder than that and Hughes was almost pulling up before the line.
Hannon, wearing the look of a man who is not sure whether these close finishes are doing much for his health, said: “Heart-attack jockey isn’t he?” tongue firmly in cheek. “I don’t know whether I’d be better hiding in the toilet when these races are being run. I love Paco Boy and my Guineas winners but this horse just has it all. That’s three Group Ones now. He’s a gorgeous horse and always has been and has a lovely turn of foot. I don’t think this is his ideal track, he’s better on a stiffer course like the Curragh.
"I’d love to keep him in training next year and if I can then I don’t want to give him too much more racing this year. There has been a lot of interest and enquiries from studs and it would be great if we could do a deal so that he could run as a four-year-old, maybe in the stud’s colours.
“While we might step d**k Turpin up to 10 furlongs, a mile is fine for this fellow and I suppose the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot is an obvious possibility as well as the Jacques Le Marois. He’s got a turn of foot this horse – you need to switch him off – and now he’s learned to race properly. He was a bit too free early in the season but he’s doing everything right now.”
The jockey is not that far off the mark either and he is revelling in what is turning into a memorable season where he seems to have a season ticket to the winner’s enclosure for the big meetings. “He’s a superstar. I rode him in the morning and I said to Richard that he’s improved out of all knowledge – nearly 10lbs – and he looked at me as if I had two heads. And he actually ran a bit rusty there - he’s never got into full flight,” Hughes said.
Stopping his horse getting into full flight too soon was a concern for Hughes which is why he missed the kick at the start. “I didn’t want him to half jump, because we’re downhill and I didn’t want him latching on. So I thought I’ll miss it completely – there’s only seven of us and I’ll get him in [behind]. And he relaxed beautifully, but we weren’t going that fast.”
But when Moore kicked on Rip Van Winkle it looked as though Hughes would have to do something fast. Not that he was worried. “He nicked a length out of me, but I know how good he is and there’s only one winning post. He just switched leads the last hundred yards and then I was in command.”
Canford Cliffs returned to the applause of the winner’s enclosure, which included O’Brien who said: “It was a great race. He’s a very good horse – it’s great to be here and great to be part of it.”
Looking at the run of Rip Van Winkle, who had improved greatly from his run behind Goldikova in the Queen Anne Stakes, O’Brien said: “We hoped that he’d progressed from Ascot – and he did – and the rest of the season is there to look forward to.”
By finishing third Premio Loco had justified Chris Wall’s decision to supplement the horse for the race, at a cost of £19,500. “The owner has got his money back with interest and you never know until you try,” Wall said. “I wanted to run him in a Group One while he was at the top of his form and had things in his favour. I didn’t want to wait. It’s a different league going up to Group One - I’ve had horses in the past who could win Group Two races, but to step up another level you really have to be special.
“Unless you’re very lucky and one falls in your lap you have to accept that. A good, hard-knocking horse like him will always win his Group Twos and Group Threes, but he’s always going to struggle in a Group One.
“He’s got what looks like a superficial cut on his hind leg, and it probably happened when he jumped out the stalls. We’ll get it checked out but I’m not using it as an excuse. George [Baker] didn’t pick up on it and it’s not bleeding profusely. He’s in some races in Germany where he won two Group Twos last year, and he’s in the Group Two Celebration Mile here at the end of August, so we’ll give him a little break and see where we go.”
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