Cracksman makes winning Prix Ganay look easy

Cracksman began his 4-year-old season the same way he ended his 3-year-old campaign – with a definitive Group 1 victory.

Racing for the first time since a romping victory in the Champion Stakes last October, Cracksman won the Group 1 Prix Ganay on Sunday at the new Longchamp by four lengths. Settling second under Frankie Dettori as Wren’s Day made the pace for the better-fancied of two Godolphin runners in the race, Cloth of Stars, Cracksman came to challenge the leader with about a quarter-mile left to race, got on even terms at the three-sixteenths marker and had taken command at the furlong grounds, striding clear to win comfortably.

“He’s gotten bigger and stronger over the winter,” said John Gosden, who trains Cracksman for owner Anthony Oppenheimer.

Racing over good ground, Cracksman was timed in 2:09.44 for the 1 5/16 miles. Cloth of Stars could not get past his rabbit and finished third, beaten three-quarters of a length by Wren’s Day. Four-year-old filly Rhododendron finished fourth in her first start of 2018.

Cracksman, by Frankel out of Rhadegunda, by Pivotal, won his fourth race in a row and now is 6 for 8 in his career. Winning the Champion over very soft ground by eight lengths last fall required a different skill set than capturing the Ganay on a different course over turf with much less give, but Cracksman has the greatest skill a horse can have – elite raw talent.

Cracksman has been penciled in for upcoming starts in the Tattersalls Gold Cup and in the Prince of Wales Stakes. The only middle-distance horse in Europe who might be his superior, the 4-year-old filly Enable, resides in the same yard, and Gosden is sure to do whatever possible to keep his two stars separated until the end of the season.