Can John and Thady Gosden build back to the top of British Trainers' Championship?

It’s been a challenging year for John and Thady Gosden and the former’s well-documented concerns over British racing one day becoming something of a “nursery for other parts of the world” may be coming to fruition earlier than first thought given the growing fears around the state of the UK’s middle-distance and staying divisions in particular this summer.

Graham Cunningham touched on it in the Sporting Life Podcast prior to York and the Racing Post’s Lewis Parteous doubled down in an opinion piece earlier this week on the fact that not one British Group 1 race beyond a mile so far in 2024 has been won by a horse actually trained in Britain.

The St Leger, British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes and QIPCO Champion Stakes the final three events to fit that criteria yet to unfold and with all due respect to Sunway and Ancient Wisdom in the Leger, one suspects a lot will rest on the shoulders of the William Haggas-trained three-year-old Economics, along with Ralph Beckett's likeably versatile mare Bluestocking, to keep one of the latter two prizes on home soil at Ascot’s end-of-year bash.

Of course, it has been impossible to live up to the almost-absolute dominance of Coolmore and Aidan O’Brien in most of the biggest races on these shores this season. O’Brien, who leads the British trainers’ championship by over £2.5million at the time of writing, will inevitably surpass Gosden (and Fred Darling) with six and claim a seventh title in the UK, to sit alongside what will be his 21st title over in Ireland.

Putting the race-distance parameters aside for now, there have been 24 top-class races in this country ahead of Saturday’s Betfair Sprint Cup at Haydock - incidentally one of the British Group 1s he has yet to master - and O’Brien has won nine of them.

A total of 14 have been snared by horses trained in Ireland, France or Australia, while only one has gone to the major British yards of Andrew Balding, the Gosdens, William Haggas and Karl Burke. The solitary home G1 success for that quartet, who currently occupy the positions of second down to fifth in the trainers’ championship, was the Gosden-trained Audience, winner of the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury.

More power to the likes of Roger Varian (Elmalka and Charyn), Richard Hannon (Rosallion), Kevin Ryan (Inisherin), Charlie Hills (Khaadem), Jane Chapple-Hyam (Mill Stream) and Archie Watson (Bradsell) for bustling in at the top table, but in a world of heightened expectation and the setting of achievable targets, one must assume the Clarehaven team has come up some way short of their start-of-season projections.

Some have pined over the loss of Frankie Dettori to California, others have predictably pointed the finger at promoted jockey Kieren Shoemark. Gosden himself is on record stating that a number of his horses were behind in their early-season schedules on account of the weather, while the rapid decline in performance levels of one or two former stars can’t have helped matters.

The truth is it’s probably several of those factors all contributing at least a small part in their own way, and turning the ship around once it is headed in a certain direction cannot be easy.

We’ve been here before with this yard, however, and an autumn rebuild always feels possible – the Champions Day squad for Ascot may not be looking quite as strong as it has in recent years but it was reasonably encouraging to see Emily Upjohn run better at York, where Queen Of The Pride surely didn’t give her running and looks worthy of another chance at some stage too.

Trawlerman, the one stayer in the world capable of troubling Kyprios, is backed up by Sweet William, Gregory, Arrest and the long-absent Courage Mon Ami in the British Champions Long Distance Cup. Avoiding the Irish beast and targeting riches in France with at least one of those would make deep sense.

A back-end programme has always been the plan for Nashwa and there might be a chance she could take in the Matron at Leopardstown en route to a shot at the QEII, where she may or may not be joined by Inspiral, who has become something of an enigma herself.

Laurel's recent demise on the gallops must have come as a massive blow but it won’t be down to Inspiral, Nashwa or Emily Upjohn to salvage things this year as now is the time to look to the future and Field Of Gold’s Solario Stakes win at Sandown on Saturday was a timely boost for all concerned and a reminder of how quickly things can start to look more positive.

The son of Kingman came good under Shoemark in what has become something of a stallion-making race and, with Juddmonte sending out quality two-year-olds under the banners of Beckett, Sir Michael Stoute, Dermot Weld, Ger Lyons and other vastly experienced conditioners in recent weeks, the importance of that victory shouldn’t be underplayed. It was only a Group 3, but must have felt a whole lot more than that to the father-and-son duo behind the operation.

Last month’s Newmarket runner-up Zanzoun and the twice-raced Glistening are two more juvenile prospects in the Juddmonte silks for whom the Gosden camp apparently has high hopes, while Cheveley Park-owned Chancellor is another Kingman colt we could be hearing a lot more about after Doncaster next week.

As for three-year-olds, the Gosdens had just two runners in the British Classics, Regal Jubilee finishing 11th in the 1000 Guineas and God’s Window 12th in the Derby.

They have nothing for the St Leger either - literally no entries in this instance - which is a lot more unusual to be fair, but do have one colt among Timeform’s top-25 rated horses from the Classic generation, namely Lead Artist (120p) who looks like taking the step up to Group 2 level in Newmarket's Joel Stakes having bagged his Group 3 at Goodwood.

There’s still a way to go for the son of Dubawi but he’s clearly among the potential next wave of stars, along with Friendly Soul who looked on the verge of falling by the wayside when flopping in the Musidora in May, but might end up being one of the year’s real success stories after resurgent wins at Ascot and Deauville last month.

She's reportedly under consideration for a trip to the Breeders’ Cup, where Shoemark versus Dettori would be a fascinating strand of the narrative.

But there’s plenty of racing to come - home and abroad - before Del Mar in November and it’s probably still too soon to make any harsh judgments on how to weigh up the year on the whole.

Challenging, yes, but far from disastrous. And the tail-end of the 2024 season looks like it could wag once more for the Gosdens, though it probably needs to if the Clarehaven yard, crowned British champions just last October, is going to quickly get back up to the top of the tree come this time next year.

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