Enable clearly best defeating two rivals in King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes

Enable had only two to beat to win her third, and she did so by 5 1/2.

“Two” was the number of opponents as Enable cruised to her third victory in the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes on Saturday at rain-swept Ascot. The 6-year-old mare is the first horse to win the King George three times and she strolled home by more than five lengths after principal rival Japan failed to fire and Anthony Van Dyck was scratched.

Sovereign made the running in the 1 1/2-mile King George with Frankie Dettori settling Enable in second, several lengths behind the pacesetter, and Ryan Moore on Japan tracking from the rear. If the plan hatched by Aidan O’Brien, trainer of both Sovereign and Japan, was to have Moore and Japan shadow Enable’s moves and pounce on her late, that strategy fell to pieces when Japan went flat past the three-furlong marker. Dettori took a good, long look back for Japan as Enable roared up to Sovereign and the final furlong and a half was more coronation than contest.

This surely was not Enable’s finest performance, but she did not need to be at her best, and she snapped a two-race losing streak, second-place finishes to Waldgeist in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe last fall and to Ghaiyyath in the Eclipse Stakes on July 5. Enable, owned and bred by Khalid Abdullah, now has a career mark of 17-14-2-1, and her progression toward a second attempt at becoming the first three-time Arc winner is going along smoothly.

The daughter of Nathaniel and Concentric, by Sadler’s Wells, will race next either in the Juddmonte International over 1 1/4 miles or the Yorkshire Oaks over 1 1/2 miles. Love, the dominant winner of the Oaks at Epsom last out, could be pointed toward the Yorkshire Oaks and would get weight from Enable, which Gosden doesn’t relish, nor does he want to run Enable over quick ground going 1 1/4 miles. In other words, the decision about an Arc prep race remains up in the air, even as Enable, as she has so often done, buried her rivals on Saturday at Ascot.