Cracksman battles for Coronation Cup glory

Cracksman was made to pull out all the stops to claim a narrow victory in the Investec Coronation Cup at Epsom.

John Gosden’s colt was the highest-rated horse in Europe last season following a scintillating display in the Champion Stakes at Ascot.

And having appeared better than ever when making a successful reappearance in the Prix Ganay last month, the son of Frankel was a prohibitively-priced 2-7 favourite to claim a third Group One success — but odds-on backers were made to sweat.

Frankie Dettori cut a concerned figure in the saddle from an early stage of the mile-and-a-half contest and drew his whip with over two furlongs still to run, as 33-1 outsider Salouen threatened to cause a major shock.

However, to his credit Cracksman did respond to Dettori’s urgings, clawing back the deficit and getting up in the dying strides to score by a head.

Dettori told ITV Racing: “He doesn’t really enjoy galloping downhill and when I wanted to close the gap, I couldn’t.

“Silvestre (de Sousa, on Salouen) got five lengths on me and made it really hard work. Once we flattened out the turbo kicked in, but we had to work for this one.

“You didn’t see the best of him today, he was never happy on the track, he’s so big, and we know he’s a better horse than he showed today. He showed his class, as any other horse would have just downed tools and finished second.”

He added: “I didn’t think I was going to get there until the last five yards. It was a massive effort to make that ground up.”

Gosden said: “Frankie was very clear he doesn’t really handle the track, he got in a muddle coming down the hill and wasn’t really travelling at any stage.

“He doesn’t like racing down a hill, he found it awkward, and it wasn’t until he went uphill that he was happy and he accelerated.

“He wasn’t comfortable at any stage, until the last 50 yards.”