Lady Bowthorpe records emotional Group One triumph for trainer William Jarvis and jockey Kieran Shoemark

As the five-year-old Lady Bowthorpe struck a blow for the older horse when seeing off all-comers over the mile-and-a-quarter of the Qatar Nassau Stakes, her success brought a variety of lengthy journeys to significant destinations.

In the case of trainer William Jarvis, the mare was ending a 27-year wait for another Group One-race success after Grand Lodge’s St James's Palace Stakes victory in 1994; the one-and-half-length win also saw jockey Kieran Shoemark reach flat racing’s big-time two years after starting the re-construction of his career following a six-month cocaine ban and subsequent rehab; for owner Emma Banks, a music agent, the result completed a childhood dream made possible when her colours were first seen in 2014.

And though all winter there was a belief that Lady Bowthorpe’s time was imminent, a slightly longer wait was forced upon them all by Group One near-misses in Newbury’s Lockinge Stakes and when luckless in the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket.

And Goodwood loved the result, applauding Jarvis and Banks – whose clients include Kylie Minogue, Katy Perry and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers – into the winner’s enclosure like rock stars, while his jockey-colleagues afforded Shoemark the rare compliment of gathering outside to cheer.

“I have a lot of good friends in the weighing-room,” said the 25-year-old. “But to see that means a lot. Without sounding too confident, I always believed that if I got back myself clean and sober that I would get to where I wanted to be.

“My career is back on track now. I’m really enjoying the racing. I’ve won a Group One today but I’m already looking forward to the next one.”

Asked about the criticism that led to speculation that he might be replaced by Oisin Murphy after the defeat at Newmarket when Lady Bowthorpe encountered trouble in running, Shoemark added: "The pressure kind of went out of the window when there were only six runners declared so the traffic problems I suppose were limited a little bit.”

Jarvis is now considering a path that could take Lady Bowthorpe to the Champion Stakes at Ascot in October; in 1994, Grand Lodge narrowly missed out in the same race, then staged at Newmarket.

The trainer of less than thirty horses, the latest generation in a distinguished line of Jarvises to have prepared racehorses on and around Newmarket Heath, beamed at the prospect of potentially having to make such plans.

“I have never lost faith in myself as a trainer,” he said. “Quite a lot of other people may well have done which is why we’ve only got 28 or 29 horses.

“I’ve been dying to run her over this ten furlongs for a long time, but events transpired against us until now. Anyway I think she’s proved even better over this distance than she is at a mile. I’m thrilled for Emma and thrilled for Kieran who obviously went through a bad place, but he came out the other end."

Also today, there were not many significant gaps in the CV that Johnny Murtagh compiled during his glittering riding career, but he never got closer than the minor placings in Doncaster’s St Leger.

Hopes are growing that Murtagh, now training successfully on the Curragh in Ireland, might instead saddle the winner after Ottoman Emperor and rising-star jockey Ben Coen revelled in the extra distance put before them in the mile-and-a-half-long Gordon Stakes, a traditional curtain-raiser for Doncaster.

With racing’s love of studying an eye-catching pedigree, the performances of Ella Dettori, 20, daughter of Frankie, and of Thea Gosden-Hood, whose parents are champion trainer John Gosden and his wife Rachel Hood, in the charity Magnolia Cup race were both under scrutiny.

Ultimately Gosden-Hood overcame a challenging passage to the start on a horse named for the race, She Got The Jockey (actually Batraan), to dead-heat with professional equestrian Candida Crawford’s mount Mine Behind (real name: Good Earth).

Supervised by her Dad, Dettori finished fourth riding Harrods Hero (Green Door).

Dettori senior, who was seen pacing outside the weighing room beforehand, declaring himself “a nervous wreck” – and looking it – seemed to let out a long “phew” as he said: "It’s over – no dramas. She got a piece of the pie in fourth and can’t stop talking about it which is great. I can relax. I’m better at doing it than watching it."

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