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STEVE DENNIS |
Weblog: Desperate measures for desperate times
Goldikova outshines the ordinary Workforce
It was an ordinary Arc before the stalls opened, and there's no reason to assume it's any different now just because a certain horse won.
Yes, an outstanding training performance from a master trainer. A majestic ride from a brilliant jockey. A victory for a horse who, I'm afraid, is no great champion, not even in our idle daydreams.
That over, we can talk about a true superstar. That Goldikova . . . WOW.
I suppose we have to take the Arc first. It was a less than enthralling prospect beforehand and despite Workforce's game victory (man, doesn't the word 'game' just ladleon the faint praise?) it doesn't quicken the pulse even now.
There are many out there who will say that Workforce was a great Derby winner, misunderstood by many, disgracefully deserted after his obliteration in the King George, and now truly back in his own again as Europe's true champion.
Cobblers.
There has to be some logical detachment to this sort of thing. Workhorse beat carthorses in the Derby, albeit in impressive style (which against carthorses isn't difficult). Then he was thrashed in the King George. We can't conveniently forget that, or mug up some 'excuse' as to why it may have happened.
Now, he returns to form to win the Arc, hard-battling against the gallant Japanese runner Nakayama Festa and the unlucky-in-running Sarafina. That's fine, and all well done and that, but there is something unconvincing about the situation. Workforce doesn't convince.
It might be the Arc, but every now and thenthe winner simply doesn't grip the imagination. Bago. Marienbard. Saumarez. That bloody Akiyda. Add Workforce to the list. Sure, he won the Derby and the Arc, but then so did Sinndar and Lammtarra, and neither are the stuff of fantasy racing.
Winning the Arc isn't the conveyor belt to some quiet Pantheon. Victory in the race does not simply confer greatness (see most previous winners).
Workforce isn't great. He isn't a champion either, because if he's a champion then you have to devise a new word for Harbinger, who stuffed him senseless at Ascot, and there are no new words. However, at the end of the year Workforce will be designated top three-year-old colt because he's the best of a bad lot.
Now, those who backed him, and those who wave the flag for Britain, and also those for whom every big-race winner is on immediate nodding terms with Sea-Bird and Sea The Stars, will disagree. Fair enough. It's a game of opinions.
But I think Workforce was an ordinary winner of an ordinary Arc. It's not unusual, you know. Now let's celebrate the extraordinary - Goldikova.
She keeps on pulling it out. She held off the hard-charging Paco Boy and still looked to have morein the locker, and the fact that she went past the equally great Miesque's record of Group/Grade 1 wins was almost irrelevant.
We are living in a small 'golden age' - let's call it a gilded age. We had Zarkava, Sea The Stars, Rachel Alexandra. We have Zenyatta and Goldikova. These are true champions, these horses who win again and again, beating the best around.
The best horse at Longchamp was Goldikova, unquestionably. Workforce may have won the Arc, but in his life he has never beaten a top-class horse and there weren't any in the Arc anyway.
Well done Sir Michael Stoute, well done Ryan Moore, very well done Goldikova. That'll be all.
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