Gosden aware of threat to Enable if King George turns tactical

John Gosden is bracing himself for a potentially tricky tactical battle with Ballydoyle on Saturday, with the trainer wary about the threats posed to Enable by her talented opposition in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

Enable returned in fine style with a straightforward victory in the Coral-Eclipse earlier this month and is back to the trip she has largely showcased her brilliance over, although Gosden is expecting a tougher test than Sandown.

"This is a fascinating race with great depth,” he said. “There is the Derby winner with three wing men, the best older horse in France, the best older horse in Britain, a Japan Cup winner and the winner of the two best trials, the Coronation Cup and the Hardwicke. It's only lacking a top three-year-old filly.”

Gosden recalled the tactical affair which Enable encountered in the Breeders' Cup Turf, when Hunting Horn hemmed her in and forced her wide before stablemate Magical threw down a sustained, but ultimately futile, challenge.

With Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck cast in the main role for Aidan O'Brien and ably supported by stablemates Magic Wand, Norway and Hunting Horn, Gosden believes the King George could develop into a tactical affair.

Gosden said: "We’ll see what happens. I stood with a senior US racing correspondent at the Breeders’ Cup, and he was aghast at Hunting Horn hunting us, harassed as it was put the other day.

"I always leave the tactics to the jockeys. You discuss a race, you discuss what might come up, but when those gates come open and it doesn’t come up as you planned, jockeys have a completely blank canvas and must do whatever they feel is right. If you start telling Frankie how to ride a race around here, I think that’s me getting out of my depth."

Credit: David Cramphorn

In a clash billed as the finest renewal of a King George for some time, Gosden is expecting Enable to need to be near her absolute peak to triumph.

He added: "We were very happy with her going into Sandown and very happy since, so let’s hope she can come back now as a five-year-old and show us her absolute best three-year-old form. I’d be very hopeful of that.

"We hope to see that brilliant turn of foot again, but you’re being tested against the best horses around. This will be a test of every horse in that field, let alone her."

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