Sir Henry Cecil won York's Dante Stakes a record seven times but Sir Michael Stoute could match that total on Thursday.
Many of the racegoers attending the three days of the Dante Festival next week will be making their way into the racecourse through the memorial gates featuring the initials – HRAC – of a trainer who was immensely popular with the York crowd and who enjoyed some of the greatest moments of his career on the Knavesmire.
Frankel’s Juddmonte International was the highlight of Sir Henry Cecil’s association with York but the trainer’s record in the Dante is testament to the fact that Cecil’s success at the track dates back to the earliest years of his career. He first won the Dante with Approval in 1970, while Tenby’s victory in 1993 was his seventh and final win in the race.
The pick of Cecil’s Dante winners was Reference Point in 1987, a colt who not only went on to win the Derby but also landed the King George and St Leger later that season either side of a successful return to York to win the Great Voltigeur.
Reference Point was the second Dante winner in as many years to follow up at Epsom as in 1986 Shahrastani had provided his trainer Sir Michael Stoute with his first win in the Dante before famously holding on from the luckless Dancing Brave in the Derby.
Stoute’s next two Dante winners, Alnasr Alwasheek in 1992 and Dilshaan in 2001, fared less well at Epsom, both finishing seventh, but in 2004 North Light beat Rule of Law and Let The Lion Roar at York before the same two colts chased him home again in the Derby.
The Ballymacoll Stud colours were successful again four years after North Light when Tartan Bearer became Stoute’s fifth Dante winner but he couldn’t quite follow up in the Derby, going down by half a length to New Approach.
Stoute’s most recent Dante winner, Carlton House in 2011, also went close at Epsom after being sent off the 5/2 favourite to give the Queen her first Derby winner but had to settle for minor honours behind Pour Moi and Treasure Beach.
Stoute has run only four colts in the Dante since his last winner, including Crystal Ocean who was third in 2017 before becoming a top-class older horse, and Highest Ground who finished second at odds on for the July Dante (run five days after the Derby!) of 2020 when the calendar was turned upside down as a result of the pandemic.
With his trainer’s Dante tally standing at six, victory for Desert Crown at York next Thursday would therefore put Sir Michael alongside Sir Henry as the race’s most successful trainers.
The son of Nathaniel carries the blue and yellow colours of Saeed Suhail who, just two years after seeing his 2001 Dante winner Dilshaan beaten at Epsom, celebrated a Derby winner when Kris Kin was successful after winning his trial in the Dee Stakes at Chester.
Desert Crown has been well supported for the Derby in recent days and is now at single-figure odds having been available at 40/1 when suggested for the race by Timeform’s Horses To Follow. He had just the one run at two, earning Timeform’s ‘large P’ symbol’ for his impressive success, indicating that above-average improvement is anticipated.
Desert Crown stormed five and a half lengths clear to win his maiden at Nottingham, and while that might make him the one with the most potential in the line-up, it does leave him short on experience compared with other Dante entries such as El Bodegon, Point Lonsdale and Royal Patronage who all achieved a lot more last year and, in the case of the latter pair, have a recent run in the 2000 Guineas under their belts.
But even if Desert Crown is beaten in the Dante, it won’t necessarily mean the end of his Derby chances as Stoute will be well aware himself. In 2010, he ran a colt in the Dante with a very similar profile to Desert Crown, one who’d also earned a ‘large P’ after winning his only two-year-old start impressively.
Workforce found the more experienced Cape Blanco – the future Irish Derby winner – too strong in the Dante but with that run behind him went one better in spectacular fashion at Epsom where he won by seven lengths in track record time, providing his trainer with the most recent of his four Derby victories.
