Ambition pays dividends

It seems wherever you looked around the globe at the weekend there was an impressive winner, starting of course with Frankel’s stunning success in the Classic Group 1 2000 Guineas (1600m) at Newmarket in England on Saturday.

Impressive, too, was Ambitious Dragon, winner of the international Group 1 Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup (2000m) at Sha Tin in Hong Kong yesterday. Here, horse and jockey showed their talents while, probably forlornly, the “should have been” rider would have watched from France.

Maxime Guyon, France’s young jockey on the way up, had commitments to the Andre Fabre stable and could not return to Hong Kong to ride Ambitious Dragon (ch g 4, Pins-Golden Gamble (NZ), by Oregon USA)), whom he partnered for his previous four wins, including two at HK Group 1 level.

Never mind, Ambitious Dragon’s Hong Kong-based South African trainer Terry Millard called up one Douglas Whyte, also South African, but also the winner of the past 10 jockeys’ premierships and odds-on to make it 11 on end this season – he leads second-placed Brett Prebble 76-58 with the season to finish early in July.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Hong Kong Derby winner Ambitious Dragon, despite missing the start by a couple of lengths, easily beat the best locals California Memory (second), Mighty High (third) and Irian (fourth) and three strong internationals (River Jetez , sixth; Gitano Hernando, eighth; and Wigmore Hall, 11th) who had raced at the Dubai World Cup meeting at the end of March.

Whyte told hkjc.com: “It all went sweetly. The only aggro was getting his head down in the gates and he almost lost the race by doing it, but after coming out slowly he did everything right and, when I called on him, he had it won in the matter of about three strides.”

Whyte had a treble, also winning on Mandarin for John Size and Fat Choy Oohlala for Dennis Yip.

Australian rider Damien Oliver said Gitano Hernando’s effort was good and that he “raced like he wants a bit further and could be a nice Melbourne Cup horse – the big track at Flemington would suit him.”

‘Ollie’ had a double, book-ending the meeting with Real Specialist for Size and Able Speed for another Australian, John Moore.

Craig Williams, who shared the Victorian jockeys’ premiership with Oliver in 2008-09, had a double in minor races at Japan’s Kyoto course yesterday. In the 3200-metre Group 1 Tenno Sho (Spring) he finished 15th on Jamil to Hiruno d’Amour (Shinji Fujita), after having won last year on Jaguar Mail.

Hiruno d’Amour (b h 4, Manhattan Café (JPN)-Share Elegance (JPN), by Lammtarra (USA)) is exempt from the ballot for November’s Melbourne Cup, and the Japanese press reported that he was a chance of running at Flemington.

Tokai Trick, 12th in last year’s Melbourne Cup when ridden by Fujita, finished fifth this year.

None of yesterday’s winners surpassed the performance of Juddmonte Farm’s unbeaten Frankel (b c 3, Galileo (IRE)-Kind (IRE), by Danehill (USA)) in winning the £350,000 2000 Guineas as 1/2 favourite for trainer Henry Cecil and jockey Tom Queally.

Suggestions are that Frankel, a six-length winner after leading by more than 10 lengths, is too brilliant for the Group 1 Epsom Derby (2400m) and that his target will be the G1 St James’s Palace Stakes (1600m) at Royal Ascot next month.

Yesterday at Newmarket, Godolphin’s Blue Bunting (Frankie Dettori) won the 1000 Guineas (1600m), giving trainer Mahmood Al Zarooni his first British Classic.

Melbourne Cup winner Americain finished sixth to Dunaden in the G3 Prix de Barbeville (3100m) at Longchamp and was to have tests to help determine “where to now”.