ASCOT, ENGLAND // National Velvet is widely regarded as the most significant racing story ever written but Noble Mission’s victory in the Champion Stakes here on Saturday might surpass that in time.
The sight of the once recalcitrant Noble Mission going head-to-head with the once sub-fertile Al Kazeem down the Ascot straight in heavy ground was enough to stir the soul.
But it was Noble Mission who dug the deepest and, at the line, only a neck could separate them.
It was only two seasons ago that Frankel, Noble Mission’s more illustrious brother, signed off his flawless career in the Champion Stakes.
Frankel was trained by Sir Henry Cecil, a 10-time champion trainer and legend who lost his battle with cancer last year, but his wife was far from lonely in the winners’ enclosure as nearly all of the 28,741 racegoers roared Noble Mission’s entrance.
“A lot of that support is for Henry and you can still feel the love everybody has for him,” Lady Cecil said. “It feels like a fairy tale for me. I hardly dared to dream he could win this race. A year ago who would have ever thought that Noble Mission would be here wining the Champion Stakes.”
It was Noble Mission’s third Group 1 victory this season after he made his breakthrough at the top level in the Tattersalls Gold Cup in Ireland in May under James Doyle.
Doyle has been instrumental in his mount’s turnaround in fortunes from a horse who finished second three times in 2012, the same season Frankel’s performances officially made him the best horse to have graced the turf.
It was the hood that keeps Noble Mission concentrating and the forcing tactics from the front that have been the key to the five-year-old’s resurgence.
Doyle had ridden Al Kazeem 11 times before he left trainer Roger Charlton to become the retained rider for Prince Khalid Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and he knew his old friend was threatening to snatch the fairy tale away 400 metres out.
“When I saw the head come to challenge me I knew immediately it was him,” Doyle said.
“Although I was delighted to see him come back to his best I owe him so much that I wish it hadn’t been him I was beating.”
Noble Mission is likely now to be retired to stud, but Al Kazeem’s journey from failure at Queen Elizabeth’s Sandringham Stud could continue to the lucrative Hong Kong meeting at Sha Tin in December.
Corine Barande-Barbe was considering sending Cirrus Des Aigles to Hong Kong before the race but the eight-year-old gelding trailed in fifth behind Free Eagle, the Irish raider, and Western Hymn.
“It was a run that meant nothing,” Christophe Soumillon, his jockey, said.
“It just happens sometimes with horses. The ground was not to blame as these are his best conditions.”
Night Of Thunder, owned by UAE businessman Saeed Manana, was second in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes to Charm Spirit.
Charm Spirit was ridden by Olivier Peslier, who sealed his new retainer with Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa of Qatar with his first ride.
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