Everyone loves an underdog story… and especially when it happens on the biggest stages of them all.
British Champions Day is supposed to celebrate the best of the best in domestic Flat racing, with a huge crowd enjoying the finest sprinters, middle distance runners and stayers on the UK and Irish circuit.
It’s not, therefore, the likely playground of 100/1 and 200/1 winners…
But that’s exactly what unfolded at Ascot on Saturday, with the latter becoming the longest odds winner of a Group One race on British soil in recorded history!
Living Up to the Name
It would be fair to describe Powerful Glory’s season as disappointing.
He won the lucrative Mill Reef Stakes last year as a two-year-old, so much was expected of Richard Fahey’s sprinter in his coming-of-age campaign.
Two from two! Powerful Glory keeps improving to land the Group 2 Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef Stakes at @NewburyRacing…@OisinOrr @RichardFahey pic.twitter.com/ISEIOdpHpN
— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) September 21, 2024
After finishing eighth of ninth on his seasonal reappearance at Haydock back in May, the decision was taken by owner Sheikh Al Maktoum to send Powerful Glory in for wind surgery – that amounted to four months on the sidelines.
He returned to action in September in a low-key race at Beverley, where he once again found the pace too hot and finished last of five.
So Powerful Glory was not expected to live up to his name in the Champions Sprint Stakes, with Lazzat – the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes winner this year – the firm 2/1 favourite.
The Champions Sprint Stakes is, by definition, a blink and you’ll miss it type race, and with Powerful Glory racing in mid-field, it looked as though any hope he had of landing a shock victory were over.
But inside the final two furlongs, he began to respond to Jamie Spencer’s cajoling, and after being switched to the right Powerful Glory began to reel in Lazzat at the head of the field.
As the finishing line came into view, Lazzat was running on… but so too was Powerful Glory, who rekindled the spirit that saw him land that Mill Reef Stakes title by heading off the favourite and landing the most extraordinary victory.
“I am lost for words,” reflected Jamie Spencer.
“Powerful Glory is a good horse and travelled nicely. I thought I was going to be placed and all of a sudden I thought I actually have a chance.”
Incredibly, that wasn’t the only long odds winner on a chaotic day of action at Ascot…
In the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, Cicero’s Gift also upset the market by winning the Group One from a starting price of 100/1.
It was a result that even the horse’s trainer, Charlie Hills, described as ‘mad’, with the five-year-old seeing off a star-studded field that included St James’s Palace Stakes winner Field Of Gold and Prix du Moulin runner-up Rosallion.
The Summer of Upset
Field of Gold and Rosallion both played their part in another big racing story this summer.
They were the favourite and second favourite respectively for the Sussex Stakes, the Group One renewal held each July at Glorious Goodwood.
Both were expected to battle it out for this year’s renewal, so much to the delight of bookmakers and racing historians, it came as a shock when the 150/1 outsider, Qirat, romped home instead.
The four-year-old was only supposed to act as the pacemaker to Field of Gold, but as the favourite floundered and Qirat stayed on, jockey Richard Kingscote sensed that an extraordinary slice of history was in the offing.
And so it proved. Qirat, who had never really shown Group One class up to that point, just about hung on to win by a neck from Rosallion.
In doing so, the four-year-old became the longest odds winner of a Group One in British racing history… until Powerful Glory would come along and steal his thunder three months later.
While 200/1 is the longest price recorded on a top-tier winner on the domestic circuit, other horses have won at even lengthier odds than that.
Since 2020, we’ve seen a pair of 300/1 winners. He Knows No Fear won on the Flat at Leopardstown five years ago, defying all expectations to land trainer Luke Comer a first victory in nearly a decade of trying.
And then, in May 2022, Sawbuck joined the 300/1 winners’ club. Trainer Conor O’Dwyer watched on as his son, Charlie, cajoled the four-year-old to victory in a Punchestown maiden hurdle.
Sawbuck had never won before and would never win again either, but on that fateful day at Punchestown he provided the O’Dwyer family – and his backers – with a moment they’d never forget.