Nostrum moves up to main player in Dewhurst Stakes

Nostrum inherited the role of favorite for Saturday’s Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket Racecourse in England after Sakheer was removed from Dewhurst consideration. Sharp winner of the Mill Reef Stakes last month at Newbury, Sakheer on Thursday was found through an endoscopic examination to be harboring an upper respiratory infection, and trainer Roger Varian said the colt won’t race again as a 2-year-old.

That put Nostrum atop the bookmaking markets as of Thursday, though the jockey who rode Nostrum to two wins to begin his career, Ryan Moore, is obligated to ride Aesop’s Fables for trainer Aidan O’Brien in the seven-furlong, straight course Dewhurst. Richard Kingscote picks up the mount on Nostrum for owner-breeder Juddmonte Farm and trainer Michael Stoute.

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Nostrum, by Kingman out of Mirror Lake, was bet like the Juddmonte “B” team when he debuted July 21 at Sandown Park, going off at 13-2 while the Juddmonte colorbearer Arrest was the 5-4 favorite for co-trainers John and Thady Gosden. Arrest ran all right, finishing third in his debut before coming back to win a pair of minor races, but it was Nostrum who pushed out to a three-length win, form he validated winning the Group 3 Tattersalls Stakes going seven furlongs Sept. 22 over this same Newmarket course. Second in the Tattersalls was Holloway Boy, a decent colt who starts in the Autumn Stakes on this card.

Juddmonte also has a second runner for the Dewhurst, Chaldean, who has won three straight, including the Group 2 Champagne Stakes at Doncaster, since a fifth-place debut finish. In the Champagne, Chaldean beat the same horse, Superlative, who’d been second behind him in the Acomb Stakes at York, and there was just one other horse in the Champagne.

Naval Power emerged as the Dewhurst hope for Godolphin and trainer Charlie Appleby, who won this race last year with Native Trail and in 2019 with Pinatubo. Naval Power, be Teofilo, has started his career a low-profile 4 for 4, his most recent and highest-level win coming Sept. 3 in the listed Ascendant Stakes at Haydock Park. There, Naval Power was trapped in a pocket behind the two leaders until the final furlong, sprinting to a dominant win once jockey William Buick had found room to run between horses.

Giving up on Aesop’s Fables might be premature. The colt pressed the pace but had no late burst when favored Sept. 11 at The Curragh in the Group 1 National Stakes. Perhaps soft ground didn’t suit him that day; Aesop’s Fables is 2 for 2 on good going and should get a firmer surface Saturday.

The one-mile Autumn Stakes, a Group 3 for 2-year-olds on the Dewhurst undercard, has the Appleby-trained Godolphin colt Silver Knott at the head of the betting market late Thursday. Appleby in remarks to overseas media Thursday mentioned Silver Knott as a potential runner in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, adding that Mysterious Night, easy winner of the Summer Stakes at Woodbine last month, still was under Juvenile Turf consideration but was not certain to make the trip to Keeneland. Another Autumn runner, Holloway Boy, has been listed by Breeders’ Cup officials as a potential Juvenile Turf participant.

Post time for the Dewhurst is 10 a.m. Eastern. The Autumn goes at 9:25.

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