TATTERSALLS GOLD CUP

(GROUP 1)

A WELL-DESERVED and hard earned first success at the top level finally arrived for the teak-tough Lancaster Bomber as he ground his rivals into submission from the front in the Tattersalls Gold Cup.

This year’s race attracted a disappointing five-runner turnout and, of this quintet, Lancaster Bomber boasted the strongest overall form. The War Front four-year-old, who was giving Aidan O’Brien his seventh win in the race, came here looking to win for the first time since he landed a Leopardstown maiden in August 2016.

However, in the intervening period Lancaster Bomber had amassed a series of fine efforts that had seen him reach the frame in six Group 1 contests. One of those came when he took third in the previous week’s Lockinge Stakes, but could the quality miler cope with the step-up to 10 furlongs?

It turned out that the dual Breeders’ Cup runner-up was more than equal to the task as he produced a pillar-to-post tour de force to give Seamie Heffernan his first victory in this race. Lancaster Bomber (100/30) was easily the best backed horse in the race and his supporters would have been on good terms with themselves at all stages.

UNFALTERING

He went to the front early and opened up a lead of around four lengths over Success Days while there was a further seven or eight lengths back to last year’s Derby second Cliffs Of Moher and the improving Defoe. The order remained unchanged on the approach to the straight and the leader maintained an unfaltering tempo at this point.

Cliffs Of Moher and Defoe closed up over the last quarter of a mile and the first-named still had a chance of victory entering the last furlong as he got to within a length.

This was as close as Lancaster Bomber allowed his stablemate to get though and he maintained an unfaltering gallop for a relatively comfortable two lengths success. Defoe was a further length and a half back in third.

“He’s been running at the top level the whole time. I wasn’t sure if he would get the 10 furlongs but this is a tough mile and a quarter and he never flinched.

“He never surrendered and he had a very good run last weekend,” said Aidan O’Brien. “Seamie was happy to either get a lead or let him roll and they just never got to him.

“The plan was to come here and then head to Ascot for the Queen Anne but after that I think that we will have to consider the Prince Of Wales’s.