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| Sumita Pawar |
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Hamish, a highly skilled and respected competitor, achieved his sixth victory at Group Three level in the prestigious l’Ormarins King’s Plate Glorious Stakes held at Goodwood.
Despite having limited racing experience, the 7YO has managed to secure triumph in eight out of his 16 previous starts. His most recent win came three weeks ago at the John Smith’s Silver Cup in York, where he narrowly defeated Scriptwriter.
Trainer Haggas Guides Hamish to Victory
Trainer William Haggas had initially entered Hamish in the highly anticipated King George event at Ascot last weekend. However, unfavorable ground conditions prevented his participation. Instead, he arrived at Goodwood as the 5-6 favorite, guided by jockey Tom Marquand.
Throughout the one-and-a-half-mile race, Hamish was ridden patiently, positioned in the middle of the pack. As the competition progressed, the son of Motivator, who is owned by the trainer's father Brian, surged forward in the final moments. With an impressive burst of speed, he crossed the finish line with a four-length lead over Jack Darcy, while Candleford, another horse from the same stable, secured third place.
Haggas said, “The horse has been an absolute nightmare today to saddle. Poor Maureen (wife) has been jumped
on about eight times, she’s got blood coming out of the top of her head because the horse struck her, but she adores this horse and she does everything with him. I’m taking no credit myself, the credit and the praise should go to her.
“I rang my father, who is a very proud Yorkshireman, and said ‘he’s been a bloody nightmare today, when he’s like this he never runs his best’, and he said ‘I think he’s like the north!’.
“He’s quite good at York, the horse, so he’s probably right.”
He went on, “I didn’t think this was a strong race for the grade and he was always travelling well. Tom said after the race this was the best the horse has felt this year. He scrambled home a bit at York last time, and while he likes a bit of cut in the ground he likes it wet.
“He won and poor Candleford was cantering, but got lost in the ground – it’s too tacky for him. He wants top of the ground. Candleford ran a good race, but Hamish was better.
“He won’t run in the Ebor. He’s hard to place, and while people said I should have run him in the King George I couldn’t do that on drying ground. You can run in a race like this on drying ground, but the King George is a different thing. My father quickly pointed out he has only run against one of this year’s King George horses, and that was Hukum and he beat him (in the September Stakes at Kempton in 2021)! He was lambasting me for not running.
“The Irish St Leger is a possibility, but he wants soft ground. We’ve been lucky this summer – ha, ha, what summer? – that we’ve had some soft ground. He’s run twice in a fortnight, while last year we couldn’t get anything out of him at all.”
Riding his third winner of this year's Qatar Goodwood Festival, Marquand said, "There was never a moment throughout the race where he didn't feel like I'd just be able to slide in and do what we wanted,
"He doesn't normally stretch away either - he normally just goes and gets the job done and usually that's as much as you can get him to do - and today I literally just turned the screw just half a notch and he was away and gone.
"Maureen [Haggas] rides him every day and if she doesn't Andrew Tinkler does. Having that everyday routine is big for a horse. He's had his problems, but they have managed him so beautifully and so carefully that it pays back in spades. He's such a fun horse and he's owned by William's father Brian so it all adds to the story and makes him such a special horse to everyone at Somerville Lodge and the Haggas family."