Saddled with a three-pound penalty, stepping down in trip, and facing a field including the bang-in-form Hamish and 2023 St Leger runner-up Arrest, there were many factors which looked to be against Giavellotto in the Group 2 Princess Of Wales’s Stakes on the opening day of the Newmarket July Festival.
However, the horse had put in a career-best effort to successfully defend his Yorkshire Cup crown on his previous racecourse outing – earning a career-high mark of 116 – and promptly gave three pounds and a beating to his toiling rivals. Three and a quarter lengths clear at the line despite being eased down in the closing stages, he appears better than ever as a five-year-old and well worth a crack at a Group 1 event.
Irish St Leger on the Cards?
Now successful three times in Group 2 company, Giavellotto has come up short in his two previous Group 1 outings – failing to stay the two miles of the 2023 Goodwood Cup but running a cracker to finish third to Eldar Eldarov in the 2022 St. Leger at Doncaster.
With two miles seemingly stretching his stamina beyond breaking point and, despite this display, 1m4f considered sub-optimal, one Group 1 contest stands out like a beacon as a suitable target – namely, the Irish St Leger at the Curragh.
Won last season by none other than Eldar Eldarov, the Irish St Leger is unique amongst British and Irish Classics in being open to three-year-olds and older horses (all others are restricted to three-year-olds only). Not only are runners aged four and older permitted to enter, but they dominate this event, with 20 of the past 24 editions falling to an older horse.
No surprise then that Botti is taking aim at the Curragh with his horse, whose name translates as Javelin. Quoted in the aftermath of those Newmarket heroics, Botti stated, “The Irish St Leger has always been the plan, and I think today was a stepping stone towards that as long as the ground doesn’t go too soft.”
A Classic Success 19 Years in the Making?
Following in the footsteps of his father, Alduino Botti, who was crowned Champion Trainer in Italy, Marco Botti set up as a trainer in 2006 and was soon amongst the winners. Consistently hitting 40 to 80 winners in almost every year since, Botti has racked up numerous Group 2 and Group 3 successes, but not yet a British or Irish Group 1 – his only top-level victories coming in France, Canada and the United States. Perhaps Giavellotto will be the horse to break that duck at The Curragh on Sunday, 15th of September.
