Lambourn trainer Charlie Hills, who is enjoying a fine season, is looking forward to the Qatar Goodwood Festival next week and has his big guns Battaash and Phoenix Of Spain primed for their assignments.
Battaash is due to contest the five-furlong £300,000 G2 King George Qatar Stakes (Friday, August 2), a race he won in 2017 and 2018. Battaash’s victory in 2017 was a major component in the son of Dark Angel being named as the best five-furlong performer anywhere in the world that year in the Longines Word’s Best Racehorse Rankings, while last year he set a new track record for five furlongs at Goodwood of 56.50s.
Hills talks to the media earlier this week
If successful for a third time in 2019, Battaash would become the first three-time winner of the King George Qatar Stakes.
The five-year-old got this season off to the best possible start with a victory in the G2 Temple Stakes at Haydock Park in May and just found Blue Point too good in the G1 King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot on June 18.
Also successful in the G1 Prix de l’Abbaye in 2017, Battaash has on occasions boiled over on race day and has had something of an issue with his temperament, but Hills believes that the Hamdan Al Maktoum-owned gelding has put all that behind him.
The trainer said: “Last year we were never 100 per cent happy with Battaash, he took a long time to come in his coat and he was always a little a bit on edge in his training.
“Ever since he has been back in training this year, he has been a different horse, a pleasure to train and to be around.
“As you saw Tuesday morning, he is beautifully relaxed, cantering up there with his ears pricked and seems to be taking everything in and enjoying himself.
“His run at Ascot was a confirmation of all of that and looking back at that race, nothing really went to right for him.
“We thought we would get a good pace off the Australian horse [Houtzen], but she unfortunately slipped coming out of the stalls and took us back out of the race. We had to make out mid-race move earlier than ideal and, at a track such as Ascot, it was going to find him out for stamina.”
Hills is looking forward to the five-year-old’s record-breaking challenge at Goodwood.
He continued: “It would be an achievement and to get the record would be great; I can’t see why it shouldn’t happen.
“I am not sure why, but Battaash does seem to love Goodwood and in his two previous runs there he has behaved very well, maybe the contours of the track help him?
“He is a tremendously fast horse – I think at Ascot he clocked 47mph between three furlong and two-furlong markers – if we get fractions right, he will be a hard horse to beat.
“He does really come alive at Goodwood. He is quite small, quite nimble and maybe he does just handle the track better than some of those bigger sprinters.”
Battaash’s Temple Stakes win on May 25 came on a day of days for Hills – half-an-hour earlier his three-year-old colt Phoenix Of Spain won the G1 Irish 2,000 Guineas at the Curragh, defeating last year’s champion two-year-old Too Darn Hot by three lengths.
The three-year-old son of Lope De Vega went from Classic success in Ireland to finishing sixth in Royal Ascot’s G1 St James’s Palace Stakes.
Phoenix Of Spain watches the goings on earlier this week
The St James’s Palace Stakes third, Too Darn Hot, is due to cross swords again with Phoenix Of Spain in the £1-million G1 Qatar Sussex Stakes on Wednesday, July 31 at the Qatar Goodwood Festival. Too Darn Hot currently heads the ante-post market after his subsequent seven-furlong G1 Prix Jean Prat success in July.
Hills admits to being a little disappointed with Phoenix Of Spain’s run at Royal Ascot.
He said: “Coming into the final two furlongs, Phoenix Of Spain was travelling really well and I thought he was going to just pick up and go away, but I think he probably floundered a little on that ground, it was horrible conditions for that race and it was getting quite loose on top. I felt he didn’t handle that surface too well. All his best performances have been on fast ground, I think that is really what he needs.”
He also feels that the race possibly came a bit soon after the colt’s imperious Classic success in Ireland
Hills continued: “He ran a huge race in Ireland after a long layoff, so there was always a chance of a bounce.
“He was also quite busy in between Ireland and Ascot, he had lots of media attention plus veterinary attention – lots of vets poking around for insurance purposes.
“He has his sleep at 11am every morning, it sounds silly but horses like routine. He loves going out got exercise at 7am, having his breakfast, then lying down before looking out the window in the afternoon. He wasn’t able to do that.”
Hills is confident that he has got the three-year-old, who leads the string every day, back to his best: “He was quite stiff after Ascot and not quite 100 per cent sound, but he came good after three or four days.
“I am really pleased with the way he is moving now and I think he must have just tweaked a muscle at Ascot.
“We’ve had a good chance to freshen him up. He had a good two weeks going quietly. His weight is very good, and Simon Whitworth, who rides him every morning, is very happy with him. He did a good piece of work at the weekend, we managed to get him on the grass which is important. He seems in a much better place and I am really happy with him.”
The Qatar Sussex Stakes is part of the QIPCO British Champions Series.
