Pedigree and physique can offer useful clues about a horse, but only the racecourse reveals if it has the will to win.
Jamie Spencer and Big Orange
Duke Of Marmalade’s 5yo son Big Orange deserved particular credit for his effort to win the Gr2 Goodwood Cup for the second year running, as he did so from the front and had to keep finding more to hold off a series of challengers.
It made for a memorable spectacle as a horse with the size and scope of a steeplechaser stayed on tenaciously to beat Pallasator, another outstanding physical specimen, by a length and a quarter, with Sheikhzayedroad a head behind in third.
“He’s got a huge will to win and it’s a big attribute to him,” Jamie Spencer, Big Orange’s jockey, said. “The handicapper says he’s improving, we feel he’s improving. Physically, it would be rude to call him a National Hunt horse, but that’s what he’s like, he’s like one of the bumper horses from [Eddie] O’Grady’s of old. He was big and slow, but he’s getting faster. The stronger he gets, the more pace he gets, so it’s starting to hang tough for him.”
Duke Of Marmalade – exciting young sire
Big Orange finished fifth in the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Park last November, and a return to Australia is a distinct possibility depending on the weight he is allotted by the handicapper. He is 20-1 with Hills to become the first British-trained winner of the race.
“He’s a very brave horse,” Michael Bell, Big Orange’s trainer, said. “He gives his all. He’s got a very good mind, a good engine and very good limbs as well, and that combination is a potent force.
“But there’s no point flying halfway around the world if you think you’ve got too much weight. We have to wait until we hear what he’s got before we can commit. He had 55.5 kilos last year and if he gets 56 or 57, it makes it very difficult to give weight away to hardened campaigners.
“He’s a high-class horse over both a mile and a half and two miles and he likes fast ground, so those are the horses that can travel. He’s got the attitude to do it, and I enjoyed Melbourne last year more than any other race except for when Motivator passed the post [in the Derby]. It would be lovely to go back, but we’ll only go if we think we’ll be troubling the judge and drinking the Foster’s.”
Duke Of Marmalade was shuttle stallion in 2009 and leading European 2nd crop sire in 2013.
He stood his first season in SA in 2014.
www.theguardian.com & SP Editorial staff
