£1m Doncaster winner Rogue Lightning will be back next season

Big price: Doncaster Scarbrough Stakes winner Rogue Lightning, left, was sold for £1million at Ascot last Saturday. (Photo by Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images)

The bay son of Kodiac has worn the silks of The Rogues Gallery all season, chalking up a hat-trick of five-furlong sprints that culminated with Listed success in the Scarbrough Stakes at Doncaster.

The gelding was then stepped sharply up in grade to take on the Group One Prix de l’Abbaye at ParisLongchamp and was not beaten far when fifth and only a length and a quarter behind the winner John Quinn’s Malton-trained Highfield Princess.

He was then auctioned via the Goffs Qipco British Champions Day Sale prior to racing at Ascot on Saturday and fetched an impressive £1million as Richard Brown was the winning bidder on behalf of Wathnan Racing.

Referred: Jockey Sam James, who rode Karl Burke's Poptronic to victory in the Qipco British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes, has been referred to the Judicial Panel after infringing the whip rules in the race, earning his fifth suspension in six months. Picture: John Walton/PA Wire

Rogue Lightning will stay in the care of trainer Tom Clover and will return to training next season with an eye on a programme of valuable sprint contests.

“It’s absolutely fantastic news, it’s terrific to have a horse like him in the yard,” Clover said.

“He’s been a great horse for the Rogues and for us, as an ambitious yard, to keep him for some fantastic new owners in the yard is very exciting.

“We’ll have to speak to Richard Brown but the plan for now is that we’ll give him a break and bring him back fresh in the spring.

“He’s the type of horse where you’d hope that the programme would work itself out, all the obvious races – King’s Stands, Nunthorpes, who knows?

“He should winter very well, I hope, and should shape into a top-class sprinter.”

Corach Rambler will start his season off at Kelso on Saturday, rather than Cheltenham.

The Grand National hero is all set for the Edinburgh Gin Chase at the Borders track, in preference to a handicap at Prestbury Park.

William Hill ambassador Russell said: “We could have gone to Cheltenham, but we just thought with this being a limited handicap it was the better option. He doesn’t have to give quite as much weight away and it should suit him nicely.

“He’s in really great form at home and everything he’s shown us so far suggests he’s still going as well as he did before the Grand National.

“You can never be sure how much these races take out of a horse, but he seems really well in himself and we’re looking forward to getting him going. He doesn’t take an awful lot of work to get fit and we took him for a racecourse gallop at Ayr which will have hopefully brought him forward too.

“He owes us absolutely nothing and he’s just a real joy to have in the yard.”