3 minute read
‘I don’t think I’ve ever cried when a horse has won before’
Tom Dascombe is leaning towards the Solario Stakes at Sandown as the next port of call for fairytale Royal Ascot winner Arthur Kitt.
The Manor House Stables handler feels the seven-furlong Group Three prize on September 1 – won last year by subsequent Derby hero Masar – is a sensible aim for the son of Camelot, after he maintained his unbeaten record with victory in the Chesham Stakes on Saturday.
Dascombe’s charge is a son of the yard’s 2012 Queen Mary Stakes heroine Ceiling Kitty, who died after giving birth to him.
Dascombe said: “I don’t think I’ve ever cried when a horse has won before, but I did on Saturday. It was really emotional.
“I don’t normally give up on a horse, but I thought three furlongs in ‘this horse is finished’. He fought back, though, and he is tough.
“He had been laid out for the race and I really like him. He is a proper horse and when he learns to be a racehorse he will be even better.
“The plan is to go to the Solario at Sandown, as it is next door to the owners, Chasemore Farm, and they’ve got a box at Sandown, so they would like him to run there.
“If he didn’t run there, there is the Champagne at Doncaster. After that we would look at the Royal Lodge at Newmarket.
“I think the Superlative at Newmarket comes to soon and he does hit a flat spot and when running into the dip there you need to be quickening. I don’t think we will go to Goodwood in the Vintage over seven, as he would get lost.”
He added: “He has done well to win over six and seven, as he wants a mile now. He will be better over a mile and if the Chesham was over that he would have won by further.
“I don’t want to over-race him this year. Everything I’ve asked him, he has done and I don’t want to put him under any pressure.”
Dascombe hopes a switch back to front-running tactics can help revive the fortunes of Kachy in the King George Stakes at the Qatar Goodwood Festival on August 3.
The five-year-old will head back to the Sussex track for a third shot at the Group Two contest, after failing to feature in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Dascombe said: “He didn’t run very well at Ascot. He is fine and looks as though he has not even had a race. I think we just rode him wrong.
“I think we were too worried about how the race was going to pan out. We should have ridden our horse as we wanted, as opposed to how the race would unfold.
“He has been entered for the King George Stakes and that will be his next target.
“I can guarantee next time that Richard Kingscote won’t be holding on to the reins and that he will give him a kick in the belly and let him get on with it.”
