DONCASTER SATURDAY

RACING POST

TROPHY (GROUP 1)

THESE past few weeks there has been a certain inevitability about Aidan O’Brien’s unwavering bid for a new world record – the most Group and Grade 1 winners went out by a trainer in a calendar year.

In the end there was no need to rely on the Breeders’ Cup – very much Bobby Frankel’s home territory – because Saxon Warrior propelled the self-effacing Ballydoyle man beyond the latter’s impressive 25-race haul. Doncaster or Del Mar? If it made any difference to the softly-spoken maestro, he made a very good job of disguising it.

Saxon Warrior, by Japanese sire Deep Impact, justified odds of 13/8 favourite in the Racing Post Trophy on Town Moor but only after John Gosden’s Roaring Lion had allowed a gilt-edged chance to slip away.

The pair had the finish to themselves, although the winner’s stable-companion The Pentagon and Jim Bolger’s National Stakes winner Verbal Dexterity performed well in third and fourth.

O’Brien does all in his power to ensure top-class races are run at a pace to suit his stars. Thus Coat Of Arms and Wayne Lordan took the field along at a brisk pace and, as so often this season, Ryan Moore played his cards early and sent Saxon Warrior to the front with over two furlongs to travel.

It soon became clear that he would prove too strong for the group immediately behind him, including Verbal Dexterity, but all the while Roaring Lion was making ground for Oisin Murphy on the wide outside. So powerfully was he travelling that he ate up the ground and might even have swept past Saxon Warrior but this sustained burst came at the cost of a decidedly wayward passage which saw him veer left towards his rival.

Even then, Murphy straightened him out and might still have prevailed but Moore, with the far rail to help him, sat down to ride a finish and forced the winner back up to score by a neck, despite taking a bump in the closing stages. Had Roaring Lion passed the post first, the stewards would have had a very tricky task on their hands.

Repeated viewings of the tape suggest Saxon Warrior was rather fortunate but it is wrong to suggest, as one television commentator did, that Roaring Lion lacked determination at the death.

Rather, he came wide into a fierce headwind and was unable to stay straight, losing vital ground. One of the unbeaten records had to go and it was his, but a rematch at any stage would pack Newmarket, Ascot or the Curragh to the seams.

“Ryan gave him a brilliant ride,” O’Brien said afterwards. “When John’s horse went by you thought he was beaten but he found plenty and we’re delighted. He’s a very special horse. He’s done everything we’ve asked of him and he’s only been a baby. I’d say there’s no doubt he’ll be better on better ground.”

Gosden, the best of losers, was one of the first to congratulate his friend and rival. Until Godolphin challenges more consistently at the highest level, possibly via access (rashly delayed access, it might be said) to Galileo’s offspring, Roaring Lion’s trainer looks the principal threat to Ballydoyle’s dominance on this side of the water.

“Roaring Lion ran a fantastic race and I was thrilled with him,” he said. “He had the race won but then got blown off course. He’s a very nice horse and there’s no reason why he won’t go for the Guineas.”

O’Brien was most unlikely to heed an interviewer’s request for the name of one particular individual responsible for launching his extraordinary career.

Brushing his hair back in that familiar gesture of embarrassment and modesty, he made the very fair point that naming names would certainly involve leaving someone out, and he wasn’t about to do that.

As for the record, he admitted he hadn’t thought about it for much of the time. “But this last month it’s been building up and I’m delighted to get there,” he said with a smile. “You have to give a lot of credit to the lads, who breed all these horses themselves. It’s just my job to get them to the track.”

Saxon Warrior is a first Group 1 winner in Britain or Ireland for Deep Impact, who famously all but burst the pari-mutuel mechanism when his supporters descended on Longchamp in 2006.

Sadly, he finished only third in the Arc and was subsequently disqualified for a banned substance. He was a brilliant racehorse, however, and will continue to be a most influential sire.

Given that he is out of Galileo’s daughter Maybe, a Group 1 winner in her own right, Saxon Warrior is bred in the purple and will take the world of beating next year.