John Ingles highlights Sir Michael Stoute's excellent record in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes and how he has targeted the race with some of his star performers.
Sandown’s Brigadier Gerard Stakes - which takes place on Thursday evening - might only have Group 3 status but the names of Sir Michael Stoute’s 11 winners of the race spanning four decades is a rollcall of many of the best middle-distance performers he has trained. In fact, most of his winners have used the race as a springboard towards winning, or being placed in, bigger contests later the same season.
That trend was set by Stoute’s very first winner, Stagecraft, in 1991. He followed up in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes (then still a Group 2) at Royal Ascot the following month, as did Poet’s Word in 2018. The latter also went on to win the King George.
Like Carlton House in 2012, ten years later Stoute’s latest Brigadier Gerard winner Bay Bridge found one too good in the Prince of Wales’s, though he gained ample compensation later in the season back at Ascot in the Champion Stakes. The 1998 Brigadier Gerard winner Insatiable failed by just a neck to win the Champion Stakes later that year having won the Group 2 Prix Dollar at Longchamp beforehand.
In common with Bay Bridge, in 1996 Pilsudski registered a first success at pattern level in the Brigadier Gerard after graduating from handicaps at three. Pilsudski ended that year winning the Grosser Preis von Baden and Breeders’ Cup Turf either side of finishing second in the Arc.
Similarly, Notnowcato’s Brigadier Gerard victory in 2006 opened the door to future Group 1 success, including in the Juddmonte International later that season. Opera House was placed in the Eclipse and King George in the same year that he won the Brigadier Gerard, 1992, and went on to win both those races the following season.
Two of Stoute’s more recent winners, Autocratic in 2017 and Regal Reality in 2019, made less of a name for themselves after winning the Brigadier Gerard, though the latter did finish third to Enable in the Eclipse on his next start.
Desert Crown became the sixth colt trained by Stoute to win the Derby and is the third of them to stay in training at four like North Light, the 2004 Derby winner, and Workforce, successful at Epsom in 2010. Both of those also made their reappearance at four in the Brigadier Gerard. Appearing for the first time since contesting the Arc – he missed his intended return in the Tattersalls Gold Cup shortly beforehand - North Light was beaten at odds on in a tactical race by the smart filly New Morning who was in receipt of 10 lb.
Workforce, on the other hand, successfully gave 7 lb to all his rivals when returning with a high-class effort at Sandown on his first start since winning the Arc the previous autumn. The remainder of Workforce’s campaign didn’t bring him any further success – he was beaten by So You Think in the Eclipse and Nathaniel in the King George – but at least he did run again after the Brigadier Gerard, unlike North Light who was retired after sustaining an injury to his pelvis whilst being prepared for the King George.
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