Ghaiyyath wires Eclipse Stakes; Enable second in comeback race

Ghaiyyath galloped them into the ground Sunday at Sandown, winning the Group 1 Eclipse Stakes by two lengths, and among “them” was the two-time Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Enable, who never looked a threat to Ghaiyyath while grinding out a second-place finish.

Enable was racing for the first time since her bid to become the first three-time Arc winner was foiled early last October by Waldgeist, and her lack of race hardness gave Ghaiyyath all margin he needed to win a second straight English Group 1. On June 5, Ghaiyyath beat a good field in the 1 1/2-mile Coronation Cup at Newmarket, and Ghaiyyath, who at times has struggled stringing together peak performances, came right back with another powerful showing in the 1 1/4-mile Eclipse.

“He’s the finished article now,” said Charlie Appleby, who trains Ghaiyyath for Godolphin. “The one thing we learned from Dubai this winter is that he’s been taking his racing better, and it was the same after the Coronation.”

Five-year-old Ghaiyyath, now a winner of eight starts, has raced only 11 times and had a one-race 2018 campaign. He faltered coming back on three weeks’ rest, finishing a subpar third in the 2019 Prix Ganay, and after a 14-length tour de force against overmatched opposition in the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Baden, he could only finish 10th in the Arc five weeks later.

A very soft Longchamp course as much as anything undid his Arc chances, and Ghaiyyath has won his three starts since. In Dubai, he had a prep for the Group 1 Sheema Classic, where he’d have been favored had the race not become a coronavirus casualty, but now Ghaiyyath has become a two-time top-level winner in England.

Ghaiyyath, by Dubawi out of the Galileo mare, Nighttime, looks like a war horse, burly with a bulky head, and he likes to have his own way.

“He’s a horse that you go with what he wants to do,” winning jockey William Buick said. “He’s not a horse who wants to be controlled; you’re best sitting against him and letting him use his big stride and then go when he’s ready.”

Ghaiyyath wasn’t quite ready to go when the gates sprang for the Eclipse, but after breaking near the rear of a seven-horse field, he quickly found the front of it. Ghaiyyath at times has run off to huge leads, but here he rated for Buick, bouncing along with an advantage of a couple lengths for most of the trip. Japan tracked the leader from the inside while Enable sat midpack, two paths off the fence, jockey Frankie Dettori asking her to move up as the home straight loomed. Enable found a higher gear, but Ghaiyyath never wavered, keeping Japan at bay while Enable’s run flattened the last 100 yards as fatigue set in. She wound up a head in front of Japan while racing, trainer John Gosden said, meaningfully below peak fitness and above her real fighting weight.

Magic Wand ran a good race from the back to finish fourth, with the Japanese mare Deirde fifth. Winning time over a good-to-firm course – the way Ghaiyyath likes it – was a solid 2:04.48.

Gosden said Enable’s comeback run should set her up perfectly for her next start, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, a race she’ll try to win for the third year in a row on the way to another try at a third Arc. Ghaiyyath, meanwhile, is more likely to go for the International Stakes at York before another trip to Paris, where, if all goes well, he’s got another date with Enable.