- Karl Burke’s recent success continued at The Cambridgeshire on Saturday
- 8-1 Liberty Lane surged to a decisive victory under Clifford Lee at Newmarket
It is not all about the Group Ones, and Karl Burke’s beaming smile proved how much satisfaction can be gleaned when you step outside the championship events.
For all that Lake Victoria — whose runaway success in the Cheveley Park Stakes stamped her as the season’s outstanding juvenile filly — and Middle Park Stakes hero Shadow Of Light gave thrilling glimpses into the future, Burke’s joy at landing one of the season’s great handicaps was infectious.
The Cambridgeshire is a unique race — a cavalry charge where a huge field effectively sprint for a mile and a furlong — but it is also steeped in history, first staged in 1839, and Liberty Lane, sent down to Newmarket from Burke’s North Yorkshire yard, turned the event into a procession.
Liberty Lane has his quirks and can need things to go right but when it all comes together, he is an accomplished racehorse and those who backed him into 8-1 rarely had a moment’s worry as he bounded away under Clifford Lee.
Burke has had a momentous 12 months, overcoming bowel cancer and becoming a grandfather for the first time in May, putting things on a racecourse firmly into perspective but his yard goes from strength to strength and this success was another ringing endorsement of his talents.
Karl Burke continued his recent success on what proved to be a momentous day at Newmarket
Burke’s 8-1 shot Liberty Lane surged to victory at the historic Cambridgeshire Handicap
Seven days earlier, he did the almost unfathomable when saddling the 1-2-3 in the Ayr Gold Cup, and the production of Liberty Lane in such rude health to bound away with the £90,000 first prize was another box ticked.
‘It’s a race I’ve always wanted to win and it’s fantastic,’ said Burke. ‘I ran him in the Dante [a key Epsom Derby trial] as a three-year-old — and he’s proved why. He stays 10 furlongs but it’s important he has juice in the ground and gets in a nice rhythm. He’s a very good horse.’
He certainly is and so, too, are Lake Victoria and Shadow Of Light.
Lake Victoria thundered three lengths clear of her rivals in the Cheveley Park to give Aidan O’Brien his record-breaking fifth success in the race, and she may return to Newmarket in a couple of weeks to contest the Fillies Mile.
‘It’s very rare to do what she did,’ said trainer O’Brien, who had won the other big filles’ race at this meeting, the Rockfel Stakes, 24 hours earlier with Bubbling. Of his jockey Ryan Moore, he said he ‘kept it simple on her and we’ll let her tell us what to do next. We did back her up quite quickly for this and there’s always a risk doing that.’
Quick was an appropriate description for Shadow Of Light, who demolished O’Brien’s odds-on favourite Whistlejacket. He has gears to burn and trainer Charlie Appleby might have a champion sprinter on his hands. ‘We’ll stick to what it looks like he’s good at,’ said Appleby. ‘Sprinting.’
