Jim Crowley walked through Ascot‘s gates and immediately felt the spectre of a ghost from a previous Champions Day on his shoulders.
One of the weighing room’s elder statesmen, Crowley’s career highlight was his partnership with the wondrous Baaeed.
At this meeting two years ago, it was assumed he would run away with the QIPCO Champion Stakes and end his career with a perfect record of 11 wins from 11 starts.
What transpired was something miserable. Baaeed got stuck in the mud and was beaten at odds of 1-4. Time has moved on but reporting for duty on Saturday, for his ride on Anmaat in the latest renewal of the £1.3million contest, he vividly remembered the pain of losing.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get over Baaeed getting beaten,’ he said.
Jim Crowley overcame the pain of previous Champions Day defeat with a stunning QIPOC stakes win at Ascot on Saturday
Crowley (centre) riding Anmaat was a shock winner of the Champion Stakes win overcoming odds of 40-1
The beauty of racing, though, is how things come full circle. Baaeed will always be there but, for completely different reasons, so will Anmaat, who belied odds of 40-1 and negotiated the kind of congestion you would associate with rush hour on the M25 to scoot away with this historic prize.
Crowley is not one for outlandish celebrations but as he fended off the challenge of the 6-4 favourite Calandagan, he sprang out of his saddle, roared with joy and frantically waggled his whip, knowing he had exorcised a ghost in front of a boisterous crowd of nearly 30,000.
‘Many good horses get beaten on this day, so it’s lovely to win this,’ Crowley said, smiling. ‘When any horse loses on his last run, as Baaeed did, it’s so tough. I suppose it took a little bit of gloss off but I was fortunate to have ridden him.
‘I wouldn’t think about it too much but today I did, that’s for sure. I celebrated a bit more than I usually do but I think that’s because I was locked up, I thought the race was gone but then he got out into the clear and he flew. It was such an amazing feeling.’
So frantic was the nature of the race, Anmaat’s trainer Owen Burrows yanked the binoculars he was peering through down in despair as Crowley, in the famous blue-and-white silks of Shadwell Stud, was hemmed in and horses bounced off each other like dodgems in the home straight.
His route to glory appeared, however, when Economics drifted left and provided a corridor. Economics, trained by William Haggas, looked like he might win for a moment himself but his run petered out and he pulled up after the line with blood streaming from his nose.
‘We’ve always thought a lot of this horse,’ said Burrows, a fervent Evertonian whose day would be further glossed by his side’s 2-0 win at Ipswich.
‘It’s easy for me to say but I really fancied him and couldn’t believe he was 40-1. My best day? We’ve had lots of good ones but there haven’t been many better.’
You could argue there have not been many better Champions Days here, too. Ascot was bouncing and the crowd were treated to some spectacular performances, starting with the outstanding Kyprios, who once again broke the hearts of his rivals in the Long Distance Cup with relentless galloping.
Crowley on Anmaat fended off the challenge of the 6-4 favourite Calandagan at Ascot
The 46-year-old jockey can put the pain of Champions Day defeat on Baaeed behind him
Wathnan-owned Kind of Blue was a hugely important winner in the Champions Sprint on Saturday
Kind Of Blue was a hugely important winner for Qatari powerhouse Wathnan Racing in the Champion Sprint and a popular one, also, for trainer James Fanshawe, who toasted a first Group One success since 2020. This colt is going places.
Most spectacular of all, however, was Charyn, whose display in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes emphatically ended the argument about who is the Champion Miler, the grey powering through the squashy conditions to win comprehensively.
‘Was there a moment when I ever thought I’d lose?’ jockey Silvestre De Sousa asked. ‘Never. He’s a dream horse.’
