Historic Ascot treble as Yeats strikes Gold again

Jun 20 2008 by Chris Wright, Liverpool Daily Post

AIDAN O’BRIEN hailed the ‘unbelievable’ Yeats as the staying star became only the second horse in the 201-year history of the Gold Cup to score a hat-trick of successes at Royal Ascot yesterday.

More than 70,000 packed the Berkshire course to see the seven-year-old pulverise his rivals in the 2m4f feature into submission under Johnny Murtagh and add to his wins of 2006 and 2007 with a five-length success over Jamie Osbourne’s Geordieland with French raider Coastal Path back in third.

Connections just basked in the glory of seeing the son of Sadler’s Wells emulate French staying star Sagaro’s treble between 1975 and 1977. Whether he returns at the ripe old of age of eight to try and prove he is the greatest Flat stayer in history is a decision for another day.

Ballydoyle handler O’Brien, who has now won four Group Ones in a superb week for the stable at the Royal meeting, said: “I can’t put into words what this means. The lads at home did a great job to get him here for one Gold Cup and then he came back for a second one and now a third one – it’s unbelievable.

“I can’t see any horse staying with him on the bridle and staring him in the face. It’s unbelievable and I didn’t really think it would happen.

“He’s a great mover with massive lungs and a massive heart. You ask most horses to go a mile and a half and that is the limit, but with this fellow his heart is only getting up to 180 beats at that stage. But he is not just a staying horse, he had the class to win a Coronation Cup.

“This is very special for everybody involved. I am very privileged to have these special horses to train.”

Sent off the warm 11-8 favourite he was settled just off the pace close to market rival Coastal Path in the early stages.

When the Andre Fabre-trained four-year-old made his move, Murtagh tracked him then as Coastal Path faded, the seven-year-old champion held off Geordieland’s chall-enge to power home to an historic success.

William Hill go 3-1 that Yeats can secure record-breaking fourth success in 2009, but O’Brien added: “I don’t know when the time will come to preserve his genes and that is the reality as we’ve never had a horse with as big a pair of lungs and as big a heart as he has – they are physical things. There is a chance he could go back to Australia for the Melbourne Cup this year. We’ll have to discuss the options, but all of the staying races are open to him.”

Coolmore head John Magnier added: “He would be one of my favourites as none of ours have done anything like that before. We set out to try and win the three Gold Cups and have done that now. We’ll have a discussion with everyone at the end of the year about his future and see what is the right thing to do for the horse.”