Gospel Choir’s dam Chorist ended her career with a second in the Group 1 Champion Stakes
over the Newmarket
circuit and, after a few tries, finally delivered a black-type scorer in this
progressive gelding,
who registered a seventh renewal of Saturday’s Group 2, £100,000 Jockey Club for Sir Michael Stoute.
Always traveling strongly held up third of the
quartet racing away from the remainder, Gospel Choir picked up the leader
Brass Ring passing the quarter-pole and drew
away for a commanding score.
“It went very smoothly,” rider Ryan
Moore said after recording the second part of an afternoon stakes double. “They
went steady
early on and then he picked up really well when I asked him. He kept winding up
nicely from
the five and saw it out really well.”
Last year’s Group 1 Irish Derby winner Trading
Leather was
fresh on his comeback and paid for his exertions as he plugged into a
non-threatening third.
On a roll in 2012, Gospel Choir
beat a pair of
smart William Haggas trainees in Sun Central and Stencive in handicaps at Ascot and Haydock before disappearing off the radar.
Brought back
steadily by his patient conditioner, the homebred followed a
Goodwood handicap win over Saturday’s 12-furlong trip with a dour fifth on rain-softened turf in the Group 3 Cumberland Lodge Stakes back at Ascot in
October.
Staying on when fourth on his return in the Group 3 Earl
of Sefton Stakes on April 17 over nine furlongs at the Craven meeting, the chestnut
son of Galileo
relished Saturday’s return to middle distances and the fast surface his
mother thrived on.
Earlier on Saturday at Newmarket, Moore piloted Sole Power to victory in the
Group 3, £65,000 Palace House Stakes for trainer Edward Lynam.
Settled in midpack early under the ideal amount of cover, the seven-year-old
gelding was denied a gap
straight ahead approaching the final furlong but when switched right
unleashed his dynamic kick to grab the advantage from the three-year-old Hot Streak in the final 50 yards as Kingsgate Native closed to replicate
last year’s exacta.
“We’re always conscious that he may not be as good, but he was super today,”
Lynam said. “He’s one of those horses who gets daylight and he goes — he’s
too honest
and if you get it too early in a race he’s burning oil and has nothing left.
“Ryan loved him today
and they are starting to gel, so we’re looking forward to a good season. He’s in
the (Group 2) Temple
Stakes (at Haydock on May 24), but if Ryan can’t ride him he probably won’t run. This
is a very
underestimated sprint and is not a Group 3.”
Sole Power enjoyed some of his finest hours under the guidance of Wayne Lordan
and
Johnny Murtagh, and Moore became the latest to enjoy the ride as the veteran
blitzed to
an unprecedented second renewal of Saturday’s five-furlong dash.
Undiminished by the advancing
years, the Kyllachy bay — who once upset Starspangledbanner at a
scarcely-believable 100-1 in
the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes at York — has proven over the proceeding four seasons that he
belongs at
the top table. Remarkably consistent, he earned the reward for some
fine-placed efforts at the highest level when notching up another at
Royal Ascot in last year’s Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes before finishing in the
frame in the Nunthorpe and Group 1 Hong Kong Sprint to cap another
profitable campaign.
Only seventh in a third attempt at the Group 1 Al
Quoz Sprint at Meydan last out on March 29, Sole Power returned to the Rowley
Mile Saturday to prove a point against the younger upstarts.
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