Hawkeyethenoo

Hawkeyethenoo was unlucky in the Group 2 Duke Of York Stakes on the first day of York’s Dante meeting last week, more so than has probably generally been acknowledged.

He was a little slowly away, but he quickly recovered to race not far off the decent pace, and he travelled really strongly. He just stumbled slightly two and a half furlongs out but he remained travelling powerfully, he was alongside the eventual winner Society Rock two furlongs out and appeared to be travelling better, but whereas the winner got a clear run down the stands side, Hawkeyethenoo just didn’t get the breaks between horses.

Graham Lee had to work his way inside when his path was blocked, but he got checked again just when he was needing room to deliver his run between Mince and Bogart over a furlong out. He was going best of all at that stage – all of the other principals were already in the clear and able to wind up from a long way out – and he finished best of all too, closing on the third horse Gordon Lord Byron all the way to the line once he was in the clear. If he had got a clear run through, it is not stretching it to say that he might well have won.

Jim Goldie’s seven-year-old is better than ever now. He was possibly unlucky to be drawn in the middle in the Group 2 sprint on British Champions Day last season – the stands side, where the winner Maarek raced, was probably favoured on the day – and he shaped nicely in the Abernant Stakes on his return, a race in which the hold-up horses just didn’t get into at all. He remains an under-rated horse, and there could be a big race in him this season at a big price. He would be an interesting outsider in the Diamond Jubilee at Royal Ascot – his Ascot form is very good – and in the July Cup, in which he was fifth last year on ground that was much more testing than ideal and when he raced well back in the field in another race in which it was an advantage to be on the pace.

15th May 2013

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