PRIDE OF JENNI REIGNS SUPREME IN A RACE THAT LEAVES MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

By Graham Potter | Monday, April 15, 2024

The 2024 Queen Elizabeth Stakes turned into two races.

Up front ... and all but out of sight ... was Pride Of Jenni. Thirty lengths behind her (at one stage at least) came the balance of the field, racing only for the minor placings.

They weren’t even close enough for Pride Of Jenni to personally pound them into defeat, which she arguably would have done had anybody taken her on, but rather they were a submissive bunch of also-rans who, collectively, never raised even a hint of a challenge ... and, remember, the likes of Via Sistina, Mr Brightside and Cascadian figured in that lineup.

All of the chasing jockeys were seemingly happy to just die wondering!

As great a sight as it was in the moment, spin it any way you like, only Pride Of Jenni, trainer Ciaron Maker and jockey Declan Bates came out of the race with any credit ... and that will be ramped up in time to be to their everlasting credit.

The robust post-race debate was thus not about whether the best horse won the race, but rather it was about how the race was won.

A popular theory was that if anybody had tried to match the probably unstoppable Pride Of Jenni, they would have cooked their own chances.

Well, nobody did so we will never know for sure. The point is though, that they didn’t have to match her early, as such, they just had to be closer to have half a chance.

If none of those horses could have got closer without cooking their chances, then the best of them weren’t the horses they have been made out to be ... and it is hard to believe that is the case.

In fact, it surely was not.

James McDonald, who rode the $1.85 favourite Via Sistina into second place, used only one word ... ‘embarrassing’ ... when asked for his assessment of the race.

That just about sums it up.

Not certain though if he meant Pride Of Jenni had embarrassed them or whether her opposition were embarrassed by their own lack of action ... or both.

Craig Williams, who has, rightly or wrongly, had his fair share of time in the ‘witness box’ in recent times, reminded stewards when questioned after the race that it was his duty to give his mount the best chance to gain its best result.

Williams’ mount, Mr Brightside, finished third. Maybe that was the best place he could have obtained on the day, but is he really an eight lengths inferior horse to Pride Of Jenni?

The sums just don’t add up.

In fairness, with the tearaway tactics of Pride Of Jenni, her rival jockeys could have expected her to come back to her field in the home straight, but just how much leeway do you allow and, when that is not happening, how late can the trailing jockeys justifiably wait to make the judgement call before hitting the accelerator?

In the end, Pride of Jenni will take all of the glory ... deservedly so ... having given racegoers a rare treat with her scintillating run.

That will be the lasting memory of the race, but, in truth, still in this immediate post-race period, the result of the 2024 Queen Elizabeth Stakes poses more questions than answers ... such as, should the beaten jockeys be exonerated completely for their perceived inaction, or, should they have been fined for their long-time lack of urgency.

As with most things, the true call in that argument probably comes down somewhere in-between those two extremes, but it certainly makes an interesting topic for debate.

Oh, and by the way, just in case you are wondering, the first prize that Pride Of Jenni ran away with, unchallenged, was worth a cool $2 950 000.

More articles