the Guardian 28/07/26
Scandinavia confirmed the form of his Ascot Gold Cup defeat of Trawlerman with a wide-margin win in the Group One Goodwood Cup on Tuesday, but the bare result does not tell the full story of a race in which a riderless horse led the field for much of the way and veered across the leaders with three furlongs to run.
The drama began at the start, when Hector Crouch was unshipped from Amiloc, the jockey catching his foot on the stalls as the horse jinked to the right. The gelding then worked his way to the head of the field with nearly 12 furlongs still to run and, having veered wide on the home turn, drifted sharply across both Scandinavia and Trawlerman soon afterwards.
Scandinavia, the favourite, was half a length behind Trawlerman at the time and Ryan Moore, his rider, did not stop riding but William Buick, on Trawlerman, lost all momentum. Scandinavia’s eventual winning margin of eight and a half lengths – with the riderless Amiloc still in front of him – suggests that the result was not affected, but the crowd was certainly denied the spectacle of two top-class stayers battling to the line.
“It’s significant,” Buick said. “It’s hard to say how significant but he’s a horse who is a Gold Cup winner [in 2025], so he stays.
“To try to manoeuvre around a loose horse is never easy and my worry was if I found myself on his outside, I could give away a lot of ground and be on the stands side, theoretically. I went the shortest route and he only got in my way in the most important part of the race.”
Moore, meanwhile, felt that the sight of a horse galloping in a clear lead might have benefited his mount. “It was nice for him to have a horse to follow all the way,” Moore said. “He probably thinks he got beat. His stride never shortened, he just kept galloping all the way to the line. He’s a high-class horse and hopefully there’s a few more good days to come.”
Lake Forest, who finished fast under Cieren Fallon to take the Group Two Lennox Stakes by a neck, could attempt to complete a remarkable double in the Group One Sussex Stakes here on Wednesday.
“I don’t see why he can’t come here again tomorrow, that’s the plan,” Maureen Haggas, the wife of Lake Forest’s trainer, William, said.
“We’ll see how he is. If we’re happy with him, then why not? He’s a five‑year-old gelding and he hasn’t got to travel anywhere. We don’t know about [the step up to] a mile, but he stays seven well.”
Earlier on the card, Kaiya Fraser came up with an early candidate for ride of the meeting as he threaded Oliver Cole’s Dr Rascal through a narrow gap against the far rail to take the Group Two Vintage Stakes by half a length.
Fraser, who was born and raised in Hackney, did not sit on a horse until enrolling on a foundation course for apprentice riders at the British Racing School in Newmarket as a 16‑year‑old. “It means everything, this is what we wake up for every morning,” Fraser said.
“I’ve put so much hard work in to get where I am today, and all the people around who have helped me – my agent James Forrest, and all the owners and trainers who put me up – I’m very grateful to them and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.”
