Telecaster upsets Too Darn Hot in Dante Stakes

Unheralded Telecaster was too darn good Thursday at York Racecourse, sending 2-year-old champion Too Darn Hot to his first defeat by beating him one length in the Group 2 Dante Stakes.

Too Darn Hot won all four of his starts as a 2-year-old, including the Group 1 Dewhurst, and was set to make his 3-year-old debut in the Greenham Stakes last month as a prep for the 2000 Guineas until a splint injury scrapped that plan and cost Too Darn Hot a couple weeks of training. The Dante instead became his target, and after trying Telecaster in the final quarter-mile of a race at a little more than 1 1/4 miles, Too Darn Hot was undone by some combination of stamina deficiency, over-eagerness in the early stages following his long layoff, and insufficient fitness.

In any case, after coming up short in his first start beyond one mile, Too Darn Hot now will be shortened up to a mile, with trainer John Gosden saying shortly after the Dante that the colt would bypass the Epsom Derby over abut 1 1/2 miles in favor of the St. James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The Dante top two proved much the best as Surfman rallied for third, four lengths behind Too Darn Hot. Telecaster got a sweet ride from Oisin Murphy, who let his mount track pacesetting Turgenev around the far bend and into York’s three-furlong home-straight, sitting chilly until about a quarter-mile remained. When Murphy asked his mount for run, Telecaster gave it, and as soon as Too Darn Hot drew abreast Telecaster with about a furlong to run, Telecaster turned him back.

Telecaster is by New Approach and out of Shirocco Star, by Shirocco, and only made his career debut March 30, finishing second to Bangkok, an Epsom Derby-bound colt. Telecaster returned April 15 at Windsor and won a 10-furlong novice stakes by nine lengths before upsetting the Dante, a race that has produced really good recent winners such as Roaring Lion (2018) and Golden Horn (2015). Hughie Morrison trains Telecaster for a partnership called Castle Down Racing and these connections must decide whether to wheel their horse back June 1 in the Epsom Derby or await the Irish Derby. Either choice would require a supplementary payment to enter since Telecaster, owing to his late emergence, was not an original nominee to any of the classic races – though he showed Thursday he belongs in one.

► A race before Too Darn Hot lost as the favorite, his 4-year-old full sister Lah Ti Dar came through as an odds-on choice in the Group 2 Middleton Stakes. But it wasn’t easy. Lah Ti Dar, Frankie Dettori riding for Gosden and owner-breeder Andrew Lloyd-Weber, had to fight tooth and nail to beat Rawdaa and Ryan Moore by a neck. Rawdaa launched a challenge inside Lah Ti Dar through the final quarter-mile and poked her head in front before Lah Ti Dar ground out a victory making her first start at age 4. The Middleton over an extended 1 1/4 miles is short of Lah Ti Dar’s best trip and the high-level filly will stretch to 1 1/2 miles next out in the Group 1 Coronation Cup at Epsom.