Things you may have missed this weekend including Lucinda Russell, Azada and John Gosden interview

Gosden the Grey

I’ve always suspected John Gosden would be someone with a good, sturdy bath-mat and those suspicions were all but confirmed while he was discussing animal welfare during an absorbing interview on Luck On Sunday.

You clearly can’t be too careful when you have such a high centre of gravity, but Gosden had a different wet and slippery surface at the forefront of his mind as he walked the course at Ascot on Saturday morning and, with the benefit of hindsight having seen it all play out, the right call was surely made - along with the Shadwell team - to pull Mostahdaf out of the Champion Stakes.

This was a matter of ground preference rather than horse welfare of course, but even the inner/hurdles track was officially soft and really quite testing on the day, and therefore keeping the Prince of Wales's and Juddmonte International winner fresh for a crack at Auguste Rodin, Onesto, and maybe even King Of Steel too, on a suitably sound surface at Santa Anita in 12 days’ time made the world of sense. And the decision also makes for a high-class Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Gosden – in a tone generally associated with that of Gandalf the Grey – went on to speak of power corrupting the mind (Matt Hancock), the dark web (black-market gambling sites) and a certain diminutive individual heading on a special mission across the ocean in order to seek solace at the foot of the Lonely Mountain.

“As an athlete, you don’t die once, you die twice,” the trainer vividly explained regarding his former stable jockey's decision to stave off retirement (death one, presumably) and ride on in California.

Long live Dettori, I say. You shall not pass.

Az easy as you like

No juvenile race at QIPCO British Champions Day (maybe one day eh?), but just as Frankie was conjuring one final rally from a gutsy Trawlerman to beat off Kyprios in the Long Distance Cup on Sky Sports Racing, there was an exciting two-year-old being initiated over on RTV at Leopardstown.

Dermot Weld was at Ascot to oversee Tahiyra in the QEII but he no doubt had half an eye out for Azada, who made her debut in the opening seven-furlong maiden, a race the trainer won with this year’s Irish Guineas fourth Tarawa in the same Aga Khan silks 12 months ago.

And Weld will have liked what he saw, the Siyouni filly not best away from the stalls but coming home with a powerful run in the straight to win going away by two and a half lengths on ground widely considered to be almost unraceable.

It’s obviously a big ask, but as one daughter of Siyouni exits stage left - Tahiyra having been retired on Monday - there will be a little non-too-fanciful expectation that her void may one day be filled by the highly promising Azada.

Another boost to Rosallion résumé

Trainer David Menuisier was celebrating a fourth career Group 1 winner on Sunday after Sunway claimed the Criterium International at Saint-Cloud, a red-letter day topped by the yard's Caius Chorister winning the mile and three-quarter Group 3 later on the card.

Menuisier has tasted top-level victory in Germany with Danceteria and in Britain courtesy of Wonderful Tonight, who also won at Longchamp on Arc weekend in 2020, and the subsequent three-year wait probably felt worthwhile this weekend.

Sunway didn't make huge ripples in the Classic markets - he's 25/1 to beat evens-favourite City Of Troy at Newmarket next May - but the performance did provide another nice boost to the prospects of Richard Hannon's Rosallion, who had Al Musmak, Ancient Wisdom, Alyanaabi, Dacing Gemini and Sunway well beaten off when winning Ascot's Pat Eddery Stakes at the end of July. That's turned out to be a seriously informative race.

Earlier on Sunday, Ireland - and the O'Brien family to be more precise - ruled the roost in the G1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud, the Aidan-trained Los Angeles edging out the Joseph-trained Islandsinthestream with another Aidan (Illinois) back in third.

Illinois, the choice of Ryan Moore and sent off joint-favourite following his debut win at Tipperary in September, was bidding to become his late sire Galileo's 100th individual Group/Grade 1 winner worldwide, but was beaten a length after not looking in love with the deep ground.

Galileo - stuck on 99 since Warm Heart's win in the Yorkshire Oaks - came quite close to adding a 100th name to the tally at Ascot on Saturday too when Jackie Oh was beaten half a length in third, with Free Wind back in fifth, in the Champion Fillies & Mares Stakes, and now hopes rest with Autumn Stakes second Chief Little Rock in this Saturday's KAMEKO Futurity Trophy Stakes at Doncaster.

Otherwise it could be back to you Jackie Oh in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf.

Rock another on a roll for Russell

Lucinda Russell isn’t the type of person to sit back and boom “IS THERE NO END TO MY TALENT?!” in the style of a pumped-up Brian Blessed, but it strikes me as a reasonable question for her to be wondering at the moment.

Cheltenham Festival, Grand Nationals, and now domination of the Flat racing world would appear to be in the sights after Friday winners at Redcar and Newcastle took the yard to seven winners on the level this year. More pertinently, their one weekend runner over jumps also delivered success, Corrigeen Rock getting the better of the similarly unexposed Thelasthighking in Kempton’s two mile, two furlong handicap chase on Sunday.

Like just every other representative the Russell stable has sent out for what seems like a couple of years now, the winner is on an upward curve, and a return to two and a half miles in a valuable Saturday handicap wouldn’t be out of the question on this evidence.

High Class Hero? No doubt

There were wins for Gordon Elliott’s Gevrey and stablemate Quilixious on Sunday but Jumping Performance of the Weekend (does that need a jingle? That needs a jingle) goes the way of High Class Hero, who took Limerick’s Listed novice hurdle apart on Saturday.

Trained by Willie Mullins, naturally, he brought up a treble on the card for his trainer and did so in effortless fashion, beating Elliott’s 133-rated The Big Doyen by seven lengths. He was a bit flat-footed at the last but had really stood off the penultimate flight before putting the race away with a sharp turn of foot between rivals approaching the final hurdle.

The speed he showed was striking given the conditions, but this three-mile point winner is going to be a staying chaser in time and, now unbeaten in one bumper and three hurdle races since joining the yard, he’s obviously another top prospect to add to the ever-bulging list at Closutton.

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