Karl Burke’s golden autumn on the Rowley Mile continued as Hankelow made all to win the Emirates Autumn Stakes.
Like Boiling Point and Zeus Olympios, the trainer’s two big winners at the last meeting here, the two-year-old is owned by Sheikh Mohammed Obaid and was given a positive ride by Clifford Lee.
The challenges lined up from the Dip but one by one he fought them off, hitting the line a length-and-a-quarter in front of Al Zanati.
The runner-up emerged with plenty of credit having pulled ferociously hard for much of the contest.
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Burke said: “It is going well. He is a beautiful horse with a great mind on him as well. He can only get better, and he will probably be better on a more level track, and with a bit more juice in the ground.
“As I said earlier he didn’t have the best of preparations going into the Doncaster race last time, nothing major, but it was just a little bit stop start for the two or three weeks before, and I think that is what got him beat really.
“I think the step up in trip has suited him well. He has got a fantastic attitude. You only have to look at him walking around the preliminaries, he is just a very relaxed horse. I’m delighted. He is a good horse, whether he is quick enough for the 2000 Guineas will be the thing, or whether he wants stepping up to a mile and quarter I don’t know, but we have got plenty of time to think about that.”
Charlie Appleby said of the runner-up: “We are all in the same boat saying the same thing for as keen as he was. To be fair to William he said once I had jumped and gone a furlong it was just a case of damage limitation.
"He basically just tried to keep him buried as he knew he couldn’t win. I said if I let him off we would never see him again so he has done the right thing and just kept him buried in there for as long as he can. From two down Will said he had to give him a couple of flicks and before he knew it he started to pick up again as he thought he was going to finish last. We have always felt there is a big engine in there, but he has just got to learn.
“He is hard to teach as he would never do that at home, but he has another run under his belt and that would man him up. He was good in the gallop up here as he was switched off. The engine is there, we have just got to work on where we head.”
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