“The Pacemaker Nearly Beat Us”: Gosden Between Relief and Surprise at York

The plan was to set an even tempo, but the script changed when Robert Havlin stole away on the front-runner, forcing Ombudsman into what looked an impossible chase. “When William let him go, he shifted from second to fifth gear in an instant,” summed up the trainer

William Buick salutes the crowd aboard Ombudsman after their brilliant victory / GODOLPHIN

YORKSHIRE, Inglaterra (Special for Turf Diario).- The closing scene of the G1 Juddmonte International Stakes at York left more than a few gasping for breath. When the crowd expected Ombudsman to assert his authority early, the race unfolded like a chess match full of tactical subtleties that upended the script. Between surprise and relief, it was John Gosden who exhaled…

The role of pacemaker Birr Castle (Cloth of Stars) proved decisive, and Gosden was quick to acknowledge it. “Andre [Fabre] very kindly loaned us the horse. He was in great shape in Deauville last weekend and told me, ‘I want the same result as Goodwood.’ With 400 meters to go, I thought Andre was about to get his wish! It was quite extraordinary. The horse ran enormous to finish third. I told William [Buick] that if he had sat four lengths off the leader, he might have won by 10!”

The original plan had been straightforward: establish an even, controlled tempo. But that script didn’t last long. “The idea was to go a consistent gallop, but the Japanese jockey kept holding on to his horse (Danon Decile), and when he slowed, the whole field slowed with him… and that allowed Rab [Robert Havlin] to slip clear on the pacemaker,”Gosden explained.

That move changed everything. Far from merely fulfilling his role, the pacemaker built a lead that briefly looked insurmountable. Gosden put it bluntly: “If you mentally divorce yourself from the pacemaker, all he needs is to be half-decent to complicate things. You can’t give away that much. It was more than we even saw in the G1 Sussex Stakes. Rab never touched him, and still, passing the 400-meter pole, he was six lengths in front! When William let Ombudsman go, he just flew… He said it was like shifting from second gear straight into fifth.”

For his part, Robert Havlin offered a candid take from the front, equal parts satisfaction and surprise. “I thought I could win… only when we hit the 200! It felt a bit like the year of Arabian Queen (Dubawi), when Silvestre De Sousa slipped away from me on Dick Doughtywylie (Oasis Dream). We were running decent fractions, nothing crazy. We got into the straight with plenty left, and I’m sure Monsieur Fabre was quietly getting excited.”

The margin at one point was so big Havlin felt the noise behind him vanish. “It went completely silent. I looked between my legs before turning for home and saw how far back they were. I eased him, gave him a breather, then let him roll on to set the target. I wasn’t sure if he’d stop… but he went straight to the line,” he recalled.

When the dust settled, Ombudsman had produced a devastating turn of foot in the final 400 meters, mowing down rivals as if they were standing still. But the ground lost early proved too much to recover. The consensus, even within the camp, was that with a different setup, the outcome might have been very different.

Once again, the Juddmonte International lived up to its billing as one of the sport’s most demanding and fascinating fixtures: speed, strategy, cool nerves, and the thinnest of margins between glory and frustration. Gosden, both relieved and contemplative, summed it up with a line that will linger: “If William had been sitting four lengths off… we might have won by ten.”