Absence of pacemaker sees trainer O’Brien take fall

He believes it was the absence of a serious pacemaker, rather than any tactical errors on the part of his teenage son Joseph in the saddle, that was to blame for Encke bursting clear and holding off the champion’s late challenge.

It is a debate that will divide racing for years – certainly until a horse does comes along to match Nijinsky’s Triple Crown achievements of 1970, now viewed as even more remarkable after Saturday’s drama, when the iconic Lester Piggott-ridden equine colossus won the 2000 Guineas, Epsom Derby and 
St Leger in the same season.

O’Brien’s argument is this: If the Ballydoyle stable had deployed their own pacemaker, and they normally do in major races, then there is a greater likelihood that Camelot would have settled better in the earlier stages of the one mile, six furlong stamina test and preserved vital energy. Instead John Gosden’s Dartford was allowed to set an unremarkable tempo which was not good enough to help stablemates Thought Worthy and Michelangelo, but sufficient to end the Triple Crown dream.

The counter-argument is that a stronger gallop may not have left Camelot with sufficient reserves to pick up in the final two furlongs – this champion was unable, on Saturday, to show the turn of foot that blitzed his rivals in the Guineas and the Derby.

The debate does not end here. John Francome, the former champion National Hunt jockey and much-respected Channel Four pundit, maintains that there was something slightly amiss with Camelot’s action from the start.

Furthermore, Encke was still travelling alongside Camelot when Mickael Barzalona asked the Godolphin-owned winner to accelerate. If O’Brien junior, almost Piggott-like in the saddle, had made a split-second decision to follow the victor, rather than appear to become impeded on the far running rail, he might – just – have landed the Triple Crown because Camelot was closing on Enke in the final strides.

As the jockey returned in tears to the unsaddling enclosure to be greeted by Camelot’s owners, who mastermind the Ballydoyle stables and Coolmore stud in County Tipperary, it was left to his father to explain the defeat with characteristic dignity and sportsmanship.

“No one thinks more about this horse than Joseph,” said O’Brien.

“I can see the way the race unfolded, where he went and why he was there. He had to wait for the gaps as they came. If he had come four wide in the straight I’d have been going mad.

“How many times do I do it and make a hash of it (running pacemakers) and then I made a hash of it by not having any. He ran a great race but just got beat. It’s disappointing for everybody but that’s the way it is. That’s racing.”

O’Brien explained a decision on Camelot’s future lay with the Magnier, Smith and Tabor families who own the champion. He is still favourite for next month’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe – European racing’s blue riband contest – and holds entries for the Qipco Champions Day at Ascot where Sir Henry Cecil’s unbeaten warrior Frankel will take his leave of racing.

However, the trainer hinted last week at the possibility of Camelot remaining in training as a four-year-old – like Frankel – because racing now expected great champions to be tested to the limit.

In making these remarks, he did not envisage the possibility of defeat on Town Moor, saying of Camelot: “We don’t know what his weaknesses are yet.”

They do now.