Qatar Prix de Jockey-Club (Group 1)

THE Secret Diary of Aidan O’Brien (aged 51 and three-quarters).

Friday – Stupendous! Saturday – Dreadful! Sunday – Magnifique!

The Master Of Ballydoyle is neither a diarist nor a linguist, but should his best-selling expose of a trainer’s life ever get published, his one-word summary for each day of the first weekend of June 2021 may run something like that. The Wheel Of Fortune can turn at a ridiculous pace.

After the triumph and tribulation of Epsom, Sunday was all about the Prix de Jockey-Club, a race that O’Brien has been taking part in, but making little impact on, for fully two decades.

This time was different – never before has he saddled both a champion two-year-old and a Cartier Award winner. He really meant business.

And while it was the same old story with Van Gogh, who plugged on steadily from the back to finish a never-threatening 10th, St Mark’s Basilica made it all look so easy en route to a one-and-three-quarter-length victory.

The most commonly used riding instruction is probably ‘break well, get a lead to the two-furlong pole, then put it to bed’.

Jockey Ioritz Mendizabal stuck to this simple plan, tracking the leader from flagfall, getting up his inside early in the home straight then employing St Mark’s Basilica’s dazzling turn of foot.

Blessed

Analysts were quick to point out that the winner was blessed with a starting position one off the rail and Jean-Claude Rouget (the trainer with the best recent Jockey Club record) commented that his trio, all drawn in double figures, near enough filled the last three places in a field of 19 on the home turn, saying with a sigh: “how can they do any better from there?”

Yet, such was St Mark’s Basilica’s superiority, I would contend that there is a good chance that he would still have won if you swapped his draw with Rouget’s Cheshire Academy, who, encumbered with stall 19, was brought widest of all in the straight before storming home into fifth, beaten four lengths.

Sure, Cheshire Academy will benefit for a step up in distance, but kudos is also due to the second, Sealiway, who proved his Poule d’Essai des Poulians form (eighth) to be all wrong, and third, Millebosc, who had a troubled preparation and was running for just the fourth time in his life.

Frederic Rossi, who has campaigned Sealiway so adventurously since his Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere win, taking in both the Breeders’ Cup and a Poulains trial, expressed vindication that this longer trip had proved so suitable, while Millebosc’s 34-year-old handler, Stephanie Nigge, was already looking forward to the autumn with her charge.

St Mark’s Basilica is different to so many Ballydoyle Jockey Club hopes of the past in that he is by the Aga Khan’s stallion Siyouni rather than Galileo – though the Coolmore supersire is still responsible for his dam, Cabaret.

More significantly still, St Mark’s Basilica has been targeted at this race for many a long month – it was only the contaminated feed saga last autumn that muddied the waters by re-routing him from the Lagardere to the Dewhurst.

“The intention was always to run in the Poulains and then come on for this race,” O’Brien admitted afterwards. “We were a bit worried about the distance but he doesn’t seem to mind this soft ground and he’s very versatile.

“His main qualities are that he has a lot of speed, he can quicken and is a very relaxed horse. He is also very kind during his races.

“Initially [last season] we were worried about running him on soft ground as he’s a very good mover and it’s just the way that it has worked out that he’s run so often on a soft surface.

“With his action – he doesn’t bend his knee very much at all – you would have thought that he might be more effective on good ground.

Eclipse

“Of course we will wait and see how he comes out of the race and I will find out from the lads what they want to do with him, but the Eclipse and all those types of races are there for him. The Champion Stakes would be another very strong possibility.

“It’s very possible that he would stay a mile and a half, he relaxes so well and quickens so well. But you couldn’t be sure until he proves it.”

Mendizabal was more definite on the subject of stamina, asserting: “without hesitation I would say ‘yes’, he will stay a mile and a half.”

The Basque rider paid tribute to his mount’s temperament, adding: “I had to ask him to pass four or five horses leaving the stalls as we needed to get a good position.

“Then he just went back to sleep, which is not an easy thing to do.”