Buick prevails after nervous wait

Even that does not explain the Betfred Sprint Cup’s dramatic denouement. Having beaten runner-up Bated Breath by a nose – the official margin – the stewards looked into possible interference with the Yorkshire-trained Hoof It, who was just a short head away in third place.

They had solid grounds to do so at the end of a six-furlong race that lasted just one minute 10 seconds, and which took an agonising three-and-a-half minutes for the photo-finish freeze frame to be verified – far longer than it took to settle the epic duel between Gold Cup winners Kauto Star and Imperial Commander in November 2009 that also nearly ended in a dead-heat.

The prominent 4-1 favourite Dream Ahead had again idled in front, one of the white-faced colt’s infuriating traits, as he drifted left, then right – and then left again towards the far side rail, forcing Graham Gibbons to go even wider on Hoof It who is co-owned by Mick Easterby, golfer Lee Westwood and his manager ‘Chubby’ Chandler.

In the Haydock stewards room, Buick’s initially calm demeanour soon left him – his cherubic face became etched with self-doubt – as the final furlong was replayed 26 times, and Driffield-based Gibbons claimed that the interference had cost him a first Group One victory as he would have won the race in the next stride.

If Hoof It, the Stewards’ Cup victor, had finished second, the placings would probably have been reversed. That was the deciding factor after 16 minutes of deliberations – and Bated Breath’s trainer Roger Charlton being shown the photo-finish print.

Buick, a Northern Racing College graduate, will hope his luck holds. He won a low-key race at Folkestone by a pixel last Wednesday – he was showboating in the saddle in the closing stages – while this contest was worth £105,000 to the victor. He hopes to land Saturday’s St Leger at Doncaster on the well-regarded Masked Marvel, following up last year’s victory in the Classic on Arctic Cosmos.

“Dream Ahead has got a big head and that’s a big help in a finish like that,” said the relieved jockey who did remarkably well to limit the wayward tendencies of the David Simcock-trained colt, a point overlooked in the post-race wranglings.

“He is a very hard horse to judge. He was running around and if he had got beat I would have said to him ‘you threw it away’ but he held on.

“When we crossed the line, I was pretty sure.”

This was a fourth Group One success for Dream Ahead who had flopped in France last month after winning Newmarket’s July Cup under Hayley Turner.

A difficult ride, and it should be noted that Buick received no suspension after the interference was deemed accidental, Dream Ahead had drifted far further across the Newmarket course when winning the prestigious Middle Park Stakes last October.

It was this form that saw him named the joint-best two-year-old of 2010 alongside Frankel. That does not appear to be a flawed assessment; Dream Ahead will now target the big end of season sprints, likely to be run on his favoured soft ground, while Sir Henry Cecil’s unbeaten colt sticks to one-mile contests.

As for Hoof It, he is definitely a Grade One horse in the making, although Gibbons was disconsolate after the verdict was announced. “The interference cost me the race,” he said.

The horse’s trainer was also non-plussed. Peering into the stewards’ room, the aforementioned Easterby – the Sheriff Hutton trainer – told racegoers: “If I was allowed in there, I’d win.”

But Chandler could not have been more gracious in defeat. “The horse owes us nothing, though this was more tense than watching one of my boys in the golf Majors,” the sports agent told the Yorkshire Post.

“He did us absolutely proud and we may go to France for the Prix de l’Abbaye on Arc day. The best thing was Lee Westwood came off the 18th in Switzerland and was able to watch the Channel Four feed five minutes after the race was finished. He was delighted.

“What a performance by Mick to turn Hoof It into, potentially, a Group One sprinter – I’m sure there’s a big race to come.”

The disappointment in the race was Malton trainer Richard Fahey’s Wootton Bassett – after setting the early pace, he faltered two out and was 13th of the 16 runners home on unsuitably fast ground.

In other racing news, Aidan O’Brien’s Aussie superstar So You Think won the Irish Champion Stakes, holding off 2010 Oaks heroine Snow Fairy, while Middleham-based Mark Johnston won the £100,000 Anatolia Trophy in Turkey with Dordogne.

Though significant, the drama of Dream Ahead’s victory will take some surpassing - despite Buick nonchantly suggesting the result “was never in doubt” as he left Haydock ahead of a potentially Classic week in his rapidly maturing career.

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