ANDREA Atzeni may have been bitterly disappointed when Simple Verse was temporarily stood down in the St Leger but that decision was reversed on appeal and everything else at Doncaster has gone extremely well for him and last Saturday’s big-race triumph was the middle leg of a treble.
Ralph Beckett’s 9/4 favourite Argus stayed on gamely to thwart Mistiroc in the mile and a half handicap and Mick Channon’s Scrutineer took the seven-furlong nursery with remarkable ease, having been backed down to 10/11.
“We thought he was a Royal Ascot two-year-old but he threw a splint,” trainer’s son Michael Channon reported. “He does everything pretty easily and he’s not even blowing after that. Andrea thinks he could be a 100+ horse.”
Argus will also be in action again next year with just the possibility that he will take in next week’s November Handicap.
Horses trained in Norway seldom feature in intricate sprint handicaps in Britain but Easy Road, starting at 14/1, kept on gamely to land the betdaq.com Commission Handicap in a driving finish from El Viento and Demora.
Trained by Oslo-based Cathrine Erichsen, the five-year-old gelding by Compton Place has won nine races in Scandinavia but was originally bought for £35,000 at the Doncaster breeze-up sale in 2012. He stays trips from four and a half furlongs to a mile, finished second in the Norsk 2000 Guineas and found the five furlongs here ideal because, as his trainer pointed out, the pace is quite fierce at home and horses coming to Britain pull too hard.
Frankie Dettori won the opening Listed Scott Dobson Memorial Doncaster Stakes quite easily on Marco Botti’s youngster Dhahmaan, who went off at 4/7 favourite.
Later on the Italian presented John Gosden with his trophy for ending the campaign as leading trainer.