Section:GDN 1N PaGe:37 Edition Date:190730 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/7/2019 19:49 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Tuesday 30 July 2019 The Guardian •
Sport^37
Over 400 of Great Britain’s roughly
450 licensed jockeys have yet to
win a single race at Group One level.
Frankie Dettori, by contrast, has won
nine since the end of May and he will
be a hot favourite to reach double
fi gures when he rides Stradivarius
in today’s Goodwood Cup, the
feature event on day one of Glorious
Goodwood. Stradivarius pushed the
betting industry towards a Dettori-
driven meltdown when he took the
Gold Cup at Royal Ascot last month,
taking his rider to four wins from
four on the day.
No chances will be taken today
and John Gosden’s fi ve-year-old
is expected to start odds-on at
around 8-11 as he tries to take his
current winning streak to eight.
Stradivarius’s backers may well fi nd
their heart-rate increasing sharply
at some stage, as the favourite’s
average winning distance in his last
six victories is a length. And while
he has always managed to get the job
done, today’s track and trip will play
to the strengths of a very dangerous
opponent in Cross Counter (3.35).
In-form jockey may fi nd
his bid for a 10th win at top
level this season thwarted
Greg Wood
TV races guide
RacingCross Counter can put
a dent in Dettori’s
Group One record
Last year’s Melbourne Cup
winner was only fourth in the Gold
Cup, just under two lengths behind
Stradivarius, but he was held up
behind a steady pace on his fi rst try
at two and a half miles and could
never land a serious blow. Back at
two miles on a course where he
broke the track record for one mile
six furlongs last summer, he off ers
some real value against the favourite
at around 7-2.
Goodwood 1.50 The handicap
that kicks off fi ve days on the
Sussex downs this week is fi ercely
competitive. Six of the runners
lined up for the equally competitive
John Smith’s Cup at York earlier
this month with Setting Sail, the
favourite today at around 7-2,
faring best in second place, but he
is now 7lb worse off with Jazeel ,
who struggled for racing room on
the Knavesmire. Jazeel has been in
excellent form since joining Jedd
O’Keeff e at the start of the season
and Jamie Spencer, who is a dab
hand with hold-up horses, is the
ideal rider to deliver him late off a
strong pace.
Goodwood 2.25 Some exceptional
colts have announced themselves
in the Vintage Stakes in recent years
including Expert Eye, Galileo Gold
and Highland Reel, and this looks
like another strong renewal. Visinari
could not justify the pre-race hype
when only third in the July Stakes
last time but he lost little in defeat,
while Positive, Mystery Power
and Pinatubo , who looked like a
potential champion juvenile as he
pulled three lengths clear in the
Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot, are
all unbeaten.
Goodwood 3.00 This may be a
slightly sub-par renewal of the
Lennox Stakes which could off er an
opening for Flaming Spear to run
well at big odds. He spread eagled
a big-fi eld handicap off a rating of
104 over track and trip last summer
and, though he has not run since
November, he has often run well
fresh in the past. At around 16-1 he is
a big each-way price.▲ Cross Counter, blue colours, can turn the tables on Stradivarius today
BRYN LENNON/GETTY IMAGES FOR ASCOT RACECOURSE
Yarmouth 1.40 Etikaal 2.15 Lilkian
2.50 Tigerfish 3.25 Knowing 4.00 Majaalis
4.30 Mitigator 5.05 George Dryden
Goodwood 1.50 Jazeel (nap) 2.25 Pinatubo
3.00 Flaming Spear (nb) 3.35 Cross Counter
4.10 Cobra Eye 4.45 Maygold 5.15 Salayel
Beverley 2.05 Tell Me All 2.40 Siyahamba
3.15 Harry Love 3.50 Ginger Jam 4.20 How
Bizarre 4.55 Barbarosa 5.30 John Caesar
Worcester 5.35 Double Court 6.05 Raven’s
To wer 6.40 Twasn’t The Plan 7.15 Jesse Jude
7.50 Takinitallin 8.20 Magical Thomas
8.50 Evita Du Mesnil
Perth 5.45 Purple King 6.15 Nietzche
6.50 Kashmir Wilde 7.25 Old Salt 8.00 Putting
Green 8.30 Chateau Robin 9.00 Artiste CelebreGreg Wood’s tips
Mercedes pageant turns into
embarrassing period drama
with shock Hockenheim ending
Formula One analysis
Giles Richardsold-fashioned drama with a happy
ending Mercedes found themselves
in their own hellish episode of Black
Mirror.
Max Verstappen won in Germany,
a fi ne drive for Red Bull; Mercedes
were riveting for all the wrong
reasons. Lewis Hamilton fi nished
11th on the track. He had led the
race but went off being given slick
tyres just as the rain returned. It
precipitated an unplanned pit stop
at which the team had neither a new
front wing nor tyres ready. Insult to
injury followed as the team failed
to pit him under a late safety car,
fearful of losing track position.
These were unprecedented
operational problems. Then, as if
to heighten the sense of distorted
reality , Hamilton – the team’s rock,
their fi ve-times world champion
whose driving has been defi ned by
metronomic, ruthless execution –
spun off and almost binned his car at
turn one.
Shortly afterwards Valtteri Bottas
did the same at the same corner and
ended in the wall. Day done, neither
driver was in the top 10 on the track
and the lighthearted outfi ts stood
in stark contrast to the ashen-faced
grimaces of the team. Hamilton,
it was later revealed, had been so
disillusioned with 11 laps to go that
he had urged the team over the radio
to retire the car.
Wolff , usually congenial and
witty even in adversity, appeared
almost shell-shocked and admitted
that perhaps Mercedes had wanted
too much from Germany. “I do
believe in karma,” he said. “When
you want to do particularly well
things can go wrong, maybe you get
distracted and maybe you are doing
things diff erently to how you would
normally do.”There have been accusations of
arrogance levelled at Mercedes,
that their elaborate plans were
predicated on expectations of
another win to add to the nine they
ha d already taken this season. This
is unfair. Given their performances
thus far they had every right to
expect to be strong at Hockenheim
and should be applauded for their
initiative in bringing fun and
innovation to the grid.
Whether it all proved a
distraction will be a subject the
team will investigate fully but it
seems this was simply a bad day at
the offi ce, one which spiralled out
of control. Hamilton referred to a
domino eff ect after the decision to
send him out on slicks.I
t was to be fair a 50-50
decision; other teams had
done the same in conditions
that were devilishly diffi cult
to call. The pit stop that
followed Hamilton’s off
was unplanned, unexpected and
unsurprisingly chaotic. The team
were not culpable but they were
for that fi nal decision not to pit, a
misjudgment in a moment of pure
pressure.
It was a pressure to which they
have been subjected infrequently
over the past fi ve years; their
dominance has only rarely been
challenged and it raises the
intriguing question of just how well
the team might perform were they
regularly in a tooth-and-nail scrap
or on the back foot.
Neither is likely to be the case for
the rest of th e season. Other teams
know the Mercedes juggernaut
will not be remotely impeded by
these events. I n the past they have
emerged from adversity stronger.
Yet this is not the way the team
want to go forward and, with
Germany consigned to history,
clearly some very blunt talking will
defi ne their immediate future.
Wolff said: “You never go home
and say: ‘Why didn’t we win?’ You
say: ‘Why did we lose?’ This is
going to be the discussion we are
going to have.”T
here was a distinctive
air of pageant around
Mercedes at the German
Grand Prix on Sunday.
With Hockenheim their
stage, the team were
determined to mark their home race
with a fl ourish. They had made an
admirable eff ort to ensure it was
memorable and it was. Yet few will
remember their attempt to bring a
sense of racing’s history to the grid
but rather their very public failure
in Formula One’s here and now, an
event made all the more striking by
its rarity.
Mercedes were celebrating their
200th grand prix as a constructor
at what will probably be their last
home race for some time because
Hockenheim is highly unlikely to
be on the F1 calendar next year.
They were running a new white
livery to celebrate 125 years of motor
racing. The white gave way to the
traditional silver at the rear of the
car in homage to the legend that the
team had scraped off the white paint
to save weight from their car in 1934- the birth of the Silver Arrows.
Equally striking was the decision
for the entire team to dress in period
costume to mark their fi rst Formula
One entry in 1954. Here then were
mechanics in white boiler suits and
fl at caps, the team principal,Toto
Wolff , in braces and a fedora, indeed
the entire organisation decked out
by London’s Angels Costumes,
the supplier of choice for the fi lm
industry.
Had things gone to plan it would
have been the perfect piece of PR
to accompany their decision to
allow Netfl ix to fi lm them for the
new series of its F1 documentary - access that they had not allowed
last season. Only instead of an
▼ Mercedes’ Lewis
Hamilton hit a wall before
fi nishing 11th on the track
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