Caballo De Mar won the Doncaster Cup on Friday, beating Beylerbeyi by a length and a quarter to take Britain’s oldest race for trainer George Scott and jockey Oisin Murphy. The result answered a question that had been hanging over the horse since his last two starts: whether the below-par efforts in the Gold Cup and the Lonsdale Cup at York were a blip or a genuine decline.
The market had expected a different winner. Queenstown, Aidan O’Brien’s Irish St Leger Trial winner, had headed the forecast in the build-up to the race but was withdrawn on a self-certificate after going off his feed. That left Caballo De Mar, sent off at 5/6, as the new favourite, and the George Scott-trained gelding wore blinkers for the first time in the race.
How It Was Run
Oisin Murphy tracked the pace through the first mile and a half of the two-mile-two-furlong test, then sent Caballo De Mar to the front approaching the final two furlongs. The winner got there in good time but idled in front, and Beylerbeyi, last year’s Cesarewitch winner, closed the gap in the closing stages without getting to him. Ascending was a further three lengths back in third.
That idling late suggests the finish was more comfortable on the clock than it looked from the stands, and it fits with what Scott said afterwards: this is a horse that wants a truly run race to show his best form, rather than one where he is left to make his own running in front.
What It Means
The last two runs, a tailed-off finish in the Gold Cup and fourth as favourite in the Lonsdale Cup, had raised real doubts about whether Caballo De Mar retained his enthusiasm at this level. Scott’s post-race comment, “it’s a case of back to how we love him,” reads as a direct response to those doubts, and the manner of the win, tracking the pace and asserting from the front, supports that reading rather than contradicting it.
For the Doncaster Cup itself, this is simply the latest chapter in a race that has been run since 1766 and remains the oldest still contested under official rules in Britain. Caballo De Mar’s name now joins that roll of honour, in a renewal shaped as much by Queenstown’s late absence as by anything that happened once the field went to post.
Looking Ahead
George Scott has confirmed the next target is the Prix du Cadran at ParisLongchamp on Arc weekend, where Caballo De Mar would defend the title he already holds in that race. That is a step up in company again, against a different set of European stayers, and it will be the clearest test yet of whether Friday’s form holds at the top level of the division.
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