Our man at the track reflects on Qirat's remarkable 150/1 victory in Wednesday's Qatar Sussex Stakes.
Ralph Beckett walks around the Goodwood winners’ enclosure in warm, summer sunshine.
He leans against the rail sporting the sort of smile that befits a trainer who has just won the Group One Qatar Sussex Stakes with a 150/1 chance, who was supposed to be in there as a pacemaker.
Racegoers clap and he acknowledges the applause, head tilted to one side. Some with a higher vantage point chant: 'There’s only one Ralph Beckett, one Ralph Beckett'.
You want to correct them and say it’s pronounced Raif but that would be pedantic.
At this moment we’re all still trying to take in the fact Qirat has won it. The same Qirat who blew out in the Hunt Cup in first-time blinkers last month, who was left in York’s Clipper Handicap at Tuesday’s forfeit stage. That Qirat.
Now he’s claimed the scalps of Rosallion, Henri Matisse and Field Of Gold, the horse for whom he was in to set the race up.
It seems like an age but after parading in front of stunned stands, Qirat returns to where his trainer and the Juddmonte team await him, there's more applause. Beckett is all smiles still, a huge pat on the back to Richard Kingscote which you sense he’s been desperate to deliver for some time now.
Photographers want their snaps as the horse tries to make his way back to the sanctuary of the racecourse stables. Life won’t be the same for him again you think. Then you realise he’s a gelding. He’s here to race, and he's technically thrown in at York.
The rope that keeps the press away from the protagonists finally drops. We get to the trainer but not before Matt Chapman who is mid-interview by now on ITV.
Beckett is still smiling; the sun still beating down.
