Humidity defies absence of over a year to win at Newmarket Humidity defied an absence of over a year to lead home an Andrew Balding one-two-three from The Lost King and High Stock in the Group Three Modern Games Darley Stakes at Newmarket. Victory for the three-year-old gelding, a winner of the Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot at two and second behind Bow Echo in the Royal Lodge in September last year, delivered a timely boost to the trainer’s championship ambitions. Winning jockey James Doyle always had the 15-8 second-favourite in contention, tracking early leader Boiling Point before hitting the front over a furlong from home. From there to the line the son of Ulysses ran on strongly to win ears pricked by a length and a half from 7-4 favourite The Lost King. Balding said: “It’s nice to have a one-two-three in a Group race, I don’t think I’ve done that before. “We had very high hopes for him, he’s a quality horse. His two-year-old form was really strong and it’s a shame he’s had to miss the majority of this year. If it hadn’t been for his injury he could have done anything really as a three-year-old. “They have done a wonderful job the Wathnan team as he went away for around three months and came back in great shape. We’ve just gradually got him back to a place of race-fitness and he looked pretty good today. “The Lost King had improved with every run this season, but this horse had a different level of form if he was anywhere near his best. He certainly looked to be working to his best, it was always just a case if fitness and the absence caught him out. “His big targets could be next year and anything is possible – he might be a horse for something like the Prince of Wales’s Stakes. But he’s a fresh horse and there might be some foreign targets for him this winter. “There will be all sorts of possibilities, so we’ll just have to see.” Aidan O’Brien delivered an immediate response in the battle for the trainers’ title just over half an hour later when Drumbeat stayed on far too strongly for Balding’s Wykehurst Park to land odds of 10-11 in the Native Trail Zetland Stakes. Always travelling well, the two-year-old Wootton Bassett colt took up the running well over a furlong out and powered to the line, pulling five and a half lengths clear of the Balding runner to land the £42,532 first prize. The win in a race that went to the same stable’s Pierre Bonnard 12 months ago earned the Ballydoyle colt quote as low as 20-1 from William Hill about his prospects in the Epsom Derby next year O’Brien said: “He is a really classy horse who could be a very classy middle-distance horse next year. “He travelled very easily through the race and the time was fast. I always thought this (10-furlong) trip would suit and the horse who beat him the last day (Noble Exhibit) is a fair horse, I would say – he worked very well this morning and is going to the Futurity (Trophy, at Doncaster). “He (Drumbeat) was very comfortable going up in trip and he’s a nice colt I would say. We’ll look at a Derby trial in the spring, but we’ll consider the Criterium de Saint-Cloud – we usually do, it’s hard not to! “I think this lad was more impressive than Pierre Bonnard in this last year – Pierre has gone a bit weak this year, but I think he will come back next year and we’ll see a good-four-year-old, hopefully.”
