Sometimes a defeat tells you considerably more about a horse than a victory.
I think that was the case with Wimbledon Hawkeye in Saturday’s Irish Champion Stakes.
George Scott and connections paid €75,000 simply to supplement him for the race.
He went off at 33/1.
He was beaten by a nose.
And I suspect the performance has completely changed the way Wimbledon Hawkeye will be viewed from now on.
It would have been easy to take the safer option.
Wimbledon Hawkeye had only recently joined Scott’s Newmarket yard and had won the Group 3 Prix Gontaut-Biron at Deauville on his previous start.
Instead, Scott felt the four-year-old was approaching the peak of his powers and persuaded connections to take a shot at one of Europe’s biggest races.
That meant finding €75,000 to get him into the field.
It looked ambitious beforehand.
It doesn’t now.
The market expected the Irish Champion Stakes to revolve around horses such as Constitution River and Item.
Instead, 50/1 shot Hotazhell and Wimbledon Hawkeye fought out the finish.
Wimbledon Hawkeye came from wider and later under Christophe Soumillon and failed by only a nose, with favourite Constitution River back in third.
He earned €236,250 for finishing second, so the supplementary fee was repaid several times over.
More importantly, however, he proved he belongs at this level.
There was nothing fluky about the performance.
What interests me most is the trajectory.
Wimbledon Hawkeye only joined George Scott in July and this was just his third start for the Newmarket trainer.
Scott said before Leopardstown that he felt the horse was thriving and could be reaching the peak of his powers.
Saturday suggests he was right.
And connections aren’t planning to squeeze another race into him simply because he’s in such good form.
The current intention is to skip the Champion Stakes at Ascot and instead work towards the Group 1 Bahrain International Trophy on 13 November.
I think that makes plenty of sense.
It’s easy to focus on the fact Wimbledon Hawkeye didn’t win.
I’d focus on what we learned.
And after what we saw at Leopardstown, Wimbledon Hawkeye shouldn’t be going off at anything resembling 33/1 the next time he lines up at the top level.
