RACING: FAME AND Glory provided redemption for Jamie Spencer and Aidan O'Brien as he graduated into a top-level stayer in the Ascot Gold Cup yesterday.
O’Brien had saddled one Royal Ascot winner this week with Power in Tuesday’s Coventry Stakes but blamed himself for So You Think’s preparation following his agonising Prince of Wales’s Stakes defeat to Rewilding, while Spencer indulged in a spot of mental flagellation over his ride on fifth-placed Gatepost in the Coventry.
Spencer was briefly O’Brien’s stable jockey until he returned to Britain in 2005 but the two men have been reunited by the Dubai-based businessman Jim Hay, who has bought into several of O’Brien’s horses and retains Spencer to ride them.
With O’Brien and his Coolmore employers using the best available jockey this season after the departure of Johnny Murtagh, they will be hard-pushed not to utilise Spencer’s talents more regularly as he rode this potential non-stayer with aplomb.
O’Brien’s Yeats has been recognised with a statue in the parade ring to remember his four Gold Cup victories and although such a feat will surely be beyond Fame And Glory, his previous exploits are more meritorious with an Irish Derby and a Coronation Cup on his CV among four previous Group Ones.
The pressure was on Spencer, as Fame And Glory had to stay an extra four furlongs than on his recent two-mile victory at Leopardstown and was the subject of a monumental gamble as a Ladies Day crowd sent him off the 11 to 8 favourite.
However, Spencer was cool and calculating, not asking his mount to commit until the two-furlong pole and pushing him home three lengths clear of the staying-on Opinion Poll.
“The paddock at Ascot can be a great place and a very lonely place all in the space of half an hour,” said Spencer. “I left here the other day wishing I could put a paper bag over my head in case I bumped into anybody on my way to my car.”
The 31-year-old, who joked he “gets on much better” with O’Brien these days, added: “It was a very easy, push-button ride.It’s a privilege to ride him. Everybody was doubting him for the last few weeks, but we never had any doubts.”
O’Brien thought back to his old times with Spencer, recalling: “I’ve always been an admirer of Jamie. When he came to us, he was only a young, little fellow coming into a pressure cooker place like ours. It wasn’t easy for him, and I can probably be a little intense sometimes.”
It was O’Brien’s 33rd winner at the Royal meeting and his 17th Group One as well as being the sixth Gold Cup winner in a row to be trained in Ireland.
It was a good day for the visitors as Jim Bolger’s Banimpire had earlier landed the Group Two Ribblesdale Stakes by the minimum distance after a thrilling battle with Field Of Miracles.
A delighted Bolger said afterwards: “After she won at Cork this was always the plan if she came out of it all right. We used Cork as if we were giving her a blow-out at home, we’d done it before and it was successful.
“All she does is eats and sleeps and the only time she exerts herself is on the racecourse. We’d have preferred good ground. She didn’t handle it too well but she got there in the end – she’s very courageous.
“I’ll probably find a race between now and the Irish Oaks and then we’ll do what the French do and give her a break before the Prix de l’Opera.”
Her jockey, Kevin Manning, added: “She’s very tough and improving all the time but the ground wasn’t ideal for her. When I asked her to quicken she was just keeping on, when normally she shows more of a turn of foot. I don’t think she was as effective on this ground.
“I always felt I would pick them up but she just didn’t pick up as well as I thought because of the ground.”
Manchester United forward Michael Owen was moved to tears by the victory of Brown Panther, trained by Tom Dascombe and ridden by Richard Kingscote, in the King George V Stakes. Owen bred the winner and owns him in the name of Owen Promotions.
