Enable could be back next month and she looks as good as ever – that was the bullish message from Frankie Dettori on Sunday.
The dual Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner may now be six but she is not showing any sign of her age.
The Racing Post reports that her main aim in 2020 will be returning to Longchamp in October in a bid to avenge last season’s Arc defeat by Waldgeist and become the first three-time winner of Europe’s most prestigious race.
Running plans, in a season whose fixture list has been rewritten after the Covid-19 shutdown, have yet to be finalised for a mare who has won ten Group 1 races for Khalid Abdullah and John Gosden, including last year’s Eclipse and King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes.
But her jockey said on Luck on Sunday on Racing TV: “The obvious races are Royal Ascot or the Eclipse, the King George, those kind of races.
“The main aim is trying to get her to the first Sunday in October in the best shape we can get her to try to do something that no horse has done in Arc history.
“She looks magnificent. Sometimes you are afraid when a horse is getting older that they might lose the racing brain but she seems very alert and she struts around the place like she owns it. She’s very fresh and alert and that’s a good sign.”
Ray Cochrane calls time on 20-year career as agent to Frankie Dettori
Dettori is looking forward to a frenetic start to the delayed turf season, assuming racing is allowed to resume on June 1, with the Guineas meeting staged on the opening weekend and Group races coming thick and fast thereafter.
“It’s going to be fast and furious, exciting, very concentrated but if everything goes to plan at least we’ll be able to catch up and by the time we get to July/August,” he said. “We’ll be right back to normal.”
Dettori is confident he will be in shape for the big-race tests that are scheduled early in the revised season.
“There’s only so much you can do in the gym but I’ve been riding out,” he said. “I’m very close to my top fitness. After a few days and after a few rides under my belt it will be business as usual.”
