THE story of the Dante Stakes was always likely to boil down to whether last year’s outstanding juvenile Too Darn Hot would stay the trip in a well-run race, and the answer, putting aside the idea that they all stay but some stay faster than others, was a palpable “non”, with John Gosden abandoning the idea of running his colt at Epsom, and instead nominating the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot as the colt’s next target.

Unconvinced

In truth, Gosden has never sounded at all convinced that Lord Lloyd-Webber’s colt would be suited by the demands of the Derby, and this gave him the opportunity to shelve a plan he’d not been committed to from the start.

That’s the big picture, but sometimes the smaller picture is more important, and I felt that Gosden wasn’t particularly happy with the way Frankie Dettori rode the race, as can be inferred from his post-race interview.

“Frankie said he didn’t want to get closer to a nice, even pace; the winner used the pacemaker well.”

FRUSTRATION

Gosden went on to talk in greater detail about the beaten favourite, but a sense of frustration that Dettori shunned the pacemaker was evident, and has echoes of the day when Dettori, at his brilliant best, won the Arc on Golden Horn by jumping on the coat tails of Treve’s pacemaker while Thierry Jarnet dithered fatally.

The Dante is not the Arc, and Dettori was undoubtedly looking after his mount for another day, but there were echoes of that day in Paris, with the upwardly-mobile Murphy assuming Frankie’s mantle and stealing the race by utilising a tool designed for his opponent’s benefit.

In that respect, the York contest was less about the Derby pecking order than it was about the weighing room hierarchy, and the winning rider impresses more and more as he slides up the bench towards the top peg.

In his defence, Dettori felt there was too much pace on for a horse who can be keen, and he was unequivocal in his verdict that the trip was too far for his mount.

Perhaps a younger, more ambitious rider would have pressed more buttons, and by doing so asked too much of a high-mettled colt, so the seemingly negative ride could well enable Too Darn Hot to flourish again.

A pinch of experience is often worth more than a ladleful of ambition, and time will tell whether the veteran rider’s approach is to pay rich dividends.

Let’s not denigrate Telecaster, though. This was just his third run having been unraced last year, and, like Sir Dragonet, he was removed from the Derby acceptors when connections decided that he was behind the curve.

Like the Chester Vase winner, too, he has quickly caught up with his contemporaries, and in running a faster time that Lah Ti Dar in the Middleton Stakes 35 minutes earlier, he pushed himself far enough up the ratings to be considered a leading candidate at Epsom.

He would need to be supplemented for Epsom at a cost of £85,000, so Hughie Morrison and connections will be in no rush to make their minds up but he’s clearly a horse of great potential, and as a son of a Derby winner out of the trainer’s Oaks runner-up Shirocco Star, he has an unquestionable Derby pedigree despite his late development.

Japan was very weak in the betting on the day and could only finish fourth.

But connections expressed satisfaction with the result, and it’s important to realise that the colt was running here not because it was the ideal race for him, but because he simply wasn’t ready for a proper run earlier in the year, and is therefore more likely to improve for the outing that most, so ruling him out of Epsom or the Curragh based on this performance would be folly.