Group race double for Godolphin in Australia

An Australian Derby victory may have eluded Team Godolphin at Royal Randwick racecourse on Saturday, but the Dubai-owned stable still enjoyed a profitable day when winning two Group races at the Sydney showpiece.

Alegron (Hugh Bowman) finished third behind the impressive Hitotsu in the testing 2,400-metre contest, while Character (Tommy Berry) failed to see out the trip and finished 12th.

Even in defeat, Bowman took out all the positives and commented: “I was delighted with him. Full credit to the team to get him here in such great order. The winner was too good.”

Hitotsu once again flaunted plenty of toughness to rack up a third Group 1 in his eight starts, following up on the $2m Victoria Derby (2500m) and $1m Australian Guineas (1600m).

Brenton Avdulla looked to have another Group 1 in his pocket with Benaud running a big race, only to bow to the superior Hitotsu and John Allen.

However, James Cumming, Godolphin’s principal Australian handler went home a happy man after saddling Honeycreeper to win the G3 Adrian Knox Stakes over 2,000 metres before Heresy won the G3 PJ Bell Stakes over 1,200 metres in front of three other runners representing the Dubai-owned stable.

“She’s a daughter of Teofilo who we thought would stay nicely,” Cummings said of Honeycreeper.

“We waited for the Adrian Knox and she had to carry a little bit of weight being Stakes-placed, but she got up in a very dominant fashion and has to be an Oaks contender on the back of that. We’ve got a few days to make sure we are happy with her.”

“She won well, she was in a beautiful rhythm,” Bowman said.

“I thought the pace wasn’t frantic but it was genuine, particularly for this type of ground, it was very testing.”

“She seemed to travel through it very well and they were starting to peel off the fence.”

“I had a lap full of horse and I just let her increase within herself and found myself on the back of the leading bunch, and she did the rest.”

Meanwhile, the curtain came down on the 2021-2022 UAE racing season at Al Ain on Friday night as Tadhg O’Shea officially sealed a record 10th UAE jockey’s title when riding Af Mukhrej to a hard-earned neck victory over Sharkh in the Al Kaznah Handicap, the penultimate race on the card.