Our man on the track Tony McFadden reflects on the 2022 Gold Cup, which saw Stradivarius' trainer and jockey draw different conclusions.
Frankie Dettori was adamant Stradivarius held every chance if good enough in the Gold Cup.
"The younger horses had more legs than me at the end. I had every chance to get to them," said Dettori in the immediate aftermath of a race that saw the history-seeking Stradivarius finish third after meeting with interference in a slowly-run event.
He added: "When I’ve pulled him out plenty of times, usually he’s got the electric turn of foot, but he’s not four anymore, he’s eight. I laboured a bit at the end and I was never going to get them."
Trainer John Gosden was rather less certain that it was simply the ageing process, rather than the run of the race, that had prevented Stradivarius from equalling Yeats's record of four wins in the Gold Cup.
“I think there was no real pace. I was a bit surprised from having been in the box seat that we dropped back so far," explained Gosden. "The problem is when they sprint, you had to come wide to get a run and he had to come widest of all. He had a chance the last furlong and the race slipped on him. They had gone a steady pace."
He added: “There are younger horses there that are first and second. I just wish we had been a little handier and not had to go through a wall of horses."
To the eye of this observer the 2022 Gold Cup was a thrilling but inconclusive contest. Stradivarius was disadvantaged by how the race developed but, equally, as Dettori argued, a younger Stradivarius, whose turn of foot was such a potent weapon that it enabled him to dominate the division between 2018 and 2020, may have been able to overcome such an impediment.
What may have happened had Stradivarius got a clear run is clearly a matter of conjecture - something to be discussed in the bars of Ascot and indeed among connections - but this was just one inconclusive result in a career of a stayer who has already proven himself as an all-time great.
The career of a Flat horse tends to be short, and for some the big day turns out to be the only day. Careers can turn on moments of bad luck, including trouble in running, preventing a potential star from fulfilling their talent.
Stradivarius, thanks to the bold decision of owner Bjorn Nielsen to keep him in training, has been given every opportunity to express his full merit across the last seven seasons, which has not only resulted in him dominating the staying division but also seen him test his mettle against the best over a mile and a half.
Challenges have not been shirked and Stradivarius has responded by showing so many of the qualities, such as class, constitution and temperament, that will appeal to breeders when the time comes to go to stud. And don’t instantly write him off as just a jumps stallion. Nielsen confirmed he will be supporting him with Flat mares – and only Flat mares – after the curtain eventually comes down on this magnificent career.
Stradivarius may not have joined Yeats in the record books as a four-time winner of the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot, but that is not what will define this extraordinary stayer, the highest-rated by Timeform since the days of Le Moss and Ardross almost 40 years ago. Higher even than Yeats.
It will be races like his third Gold Cup - the one he won by a staggering ten lengths - or his record fourth Goodwood Cup, or a third Yorkshire Cup at the age of eight that people will point to. For those associated with Stradivarius, there is so much more than this sense of what may have been.
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