{"id":286493,"date":"2023-09-06T08:35:37","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T08:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/?p=286493"},"modified":"2023-09-06T08:35:37","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T08:35:37","slug":"appleby-must-not-let-summer-of-struggle-turn-into-winter-of-discontent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/horse-racing\/appleby-must-not-let-summer-of-struggle-turn-into-winter-of-discontent\/","title":{"rendered":"Appleby must not let summer of struggle turn into winter of discontent"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>MARCUS TOWNEND: Charlie Appleby must not let summer of struggle turn into winter of discontent&#8230; and could this be Frodon&#8217;s last season?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The season has not gone as trainer Charlie Appleby would have liked\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><span>But\u00a0Aablan offers some light for Appleby and he clearly possesses resilience<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Retirement of Pyledriver stripped Flat racing of one of its most colourful stories<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One swallow doesn&#8217;t make a summer and for Godolphin trainer Charlie Appleby that adage could be extended to two summers after his Aablan won Saturday&#8217;s Solario Stakes at Sandown.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone can see that Appleby&#8217;s 10th season as the principal trainer for Sheik Mohammed&#8217;s powerful British operation has not gone as he would have liked.<\/p>\n<p>The champion trainer&#8217;s tally of 70 wins is way shy of last year&#8217;s 152, there were no successes at Royal Ascot, Glorious Goodwood or York&#8217;s Ebor meeting, and the man who trained 17 Group One winners worldwide in 2021 and 13 in 2022 has only bagged two in this campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The only one in Britain came from the now retired Modern Games in the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury in May, and the closest one of Appleby&#8217;s horses got in the Classics to be run so far was Noble Style&#8217;s sixth in the 2,000 Guineas.<\/p>\n<p>Appleby has been unfortunate that flagbearing older horses such as 2021 Derby winner Adayar have underperformed and been retired but after Royal Ascot his explanation for the barren spell was that the writing had been on the wall, because his 2022 two-year-olds had not done well.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/06\/08\/75109403-12485807-image-a-1_1693984202443.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Charlie Appleby&#8217;s season has not gone as he would have liked with just two Group One winners<\/p>\n<p>He said: &#8216;At the end of the day, you play the cards you are dealt. As we know, at the back end of last year, we didn&#8217;t have a champion two-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;That will always show in terms of three-year-olds. If you are not in the first three in the Dewhurst, National Stakes, Futurity Trophy or Fillies&#8217; Mile, you are not going to be bang there in the Classic picture the following year and that&#8217;s where we were.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Appleby&#8217;s sentiments are not unreasonable and they mean what happens in the big two-year-old races between now and the end of the season is pivotal to the trainer&#8217;s bid to punch his weight again in 2024, especially with big rival Aidan O&#8217;Brien having unveiled a string of exciting young talent headed by City Of Troy, Diego Velazquez, Henry Longfellow and Ylang Ylang.<\/p>\n<p>Before Aablan&#8217;s win, Appleby had introduced some promising two-year-olds, but when they stepped up to be really tested they came up short.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A trainer&#8217;s season can be transformed in the few seconds it takes to run a horse race but the clock is ticking on Appleby finding a potential champion.<\/p>\n<p>Horses such as Arabian Crown, an impressive winner of Salisbury&#8217;s Stonehenge Stakes, Haydock debut scorer By The Book and Newmarket maiden winner Race The Wind may yet step up to the plate.\u00a0But as things stand they still have plenty to prove.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There has also been no sign of a clutch of expensively assembled youngsters, bought at the prestigious Tattersalls Book 1 sale last autumn by Godolphin, including the Frankel colt out of So Mi Dar who cost \u00a32,940,000 and El Cordobes, bought privately after the purchaser who bid \u00a32.1m reneged on the deal.<\/p>\n<p>Aablan offers some light for Appleby and he clearly possesses resilience. He had to battle hard at Sandown. But his win was workmanlike in a bunched finish and jockey James Doyle conceded the colt &#8216;hasn&#8217;t got an electric turn of foot&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>He will need more to be a Group One two-year-old winner but Appleby at least has a swallow. What he needs now are a few swifts to fly as well, otherwise it might be a long winter.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/06\/08\/75109483-12485807-image-a-2_1693984475665.jpg\" height=\"441\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Resilient Aablan (No 1 ) won Saturday&#8217;s\u00a0Solario Stakes and offers some light for Appleby<\/p>\n<h2><span>Hannon flyer set to sparkle<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Trainer Richard Hannon has won the Group Two Champagne Stakes at Doncaster three times in the last 10 years and there will be some long faces in his Wiltshire stable if Rosallion doesn&#8217;t give him another success in the race next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Sheik Mohammed Obaid-owned son of Blue Point stormed to a four-length win in the Listed Pat Eddery Stakes at Ascot in July and Hannon told me: &#8216;He is a machine, the best two-year-old I have had for years, if not ever.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>If all goes well at Doncaster, it will be on to Newmarket for the Dewhurst Stakes on October 14 for Rosallion.<\/p>\n<p>Hannon rates highly another offspring of Blue Point in his stable. Serene Seraph hasn&#8217;t run since a third at Doncaster in June. She runs at Salisbury on Thursday. Hannon has found no reason for Haatem&#8217;s poor ninth in the Gimcrack Stakes at York last month. The winner of the Group Two Vintage Stakes at Glorious Goodwood will have a shot at the Group One Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at Longchamp on Arc weekend.<\/p>\n<h2><span>Muir will miss star Pyledriver<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The retirement due to injury of Pyledriver has stripped Flat racing of one of its most colourful stories.<\/p>\n<p>Willie Muir had never trained a Group One winner until the humbly-bred colt landed the 2021 Coronation Cup.<\/p>\n<p>More memorable than any of his eight wins was the pride and joy of Muir when Pyledriver won last year&#8217;s King George VI &amp; Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot.<\/p>\n<p>Muir is highly unlikely to have another horse anywhere near as talented as Pyledriver and he made sure he enjoyed him.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/06\/08\/75109689-12485807-image-a-3_1693985071947.jpg\" height=\"412\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The retirement of Pyledriver has stripped Flat racing of one of its most colourful stories<\/p>\n<h2><span>So, is this season going to be Frodon&#8217;s swansong?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Work at Paul Nicholls&#8217; stable has stepped up a gear as the serious part of the jumps season looms and news from the 14-time champion trainer&#8217;s Somerset base is that this season might be the last for his popular 2020 King George VI Chase winner Frodon.<\/p>\n<p>The gelding that has done so much to promote the career of jockey Bryony Frost turns 12 on January 1 and, while there is no suggestion that Frodon&#8217;s ability is on the slide, Nicholls is keen to adopt a protective approach to a stable stalwart who has won 19 races and close to \u00a31.2million.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Frodon is on standby to compete in the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby on November 4 if the ground is too fast to run Nicholls&#8217; 2022 King George VI Chase winner and Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up Bravemansgame.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise Frodon is expected to try to win the Badger Beer Chase at Wincanton on November 11 for the second year running.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, he is back down to a handicap mark of 158, the rating he won the race off last season. Keen not to over-race the gelding, Nicholls has suggested that Frodon might then be saved until the Portman Cup at Taunton at the end of January, a race won three times by the popular Nicholls-trained chaser Yala Enki.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/06\/08\/75109885-12485807-image-a-11_1693985403423.jpg\" height=\"457\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>This season might be the last for the popular 2020 King George VI Chase winner Frodon<\/p>\n<p>Once again there has been a fresh influx of expensively assembled young blood to the Nicholls stable. New owners on the roster include Lynne Maclennan, whose string at Nicholls&#8217; Ditcheat base includes the promising novice chase prospect Mofasa.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Neil Smith, who has owned horses with Nicholls before, is back in the Ditcheat fold in a major way and his horses include Panjari, a Listed race winner on the Flat in both Germany and Italy, and promising juvenile hurdle prospect Liari, a winner on the Flat at Toulouse in France in the Aga Khan&#8217;s silks.<\/p>\n<p>John Romans, one of the main owners in the Dorset stable of Joe Tizzard, also has his first horse with Nicholls, though the three-year-old filly by Time Test will not see the track until next spring at the earliest.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nicholls had 163 winners last year, six of them at Grade One level, and one of the big targets will be to secure the five Grade One wins to make it 150 in his career.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/racing\/article-12485807\/MARCUS-TOWNEND-Charlie-Appleby-not-let-summer-struggle-turn-winter-discontent-Frodons-season.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MARCUS TOWNEND: Charlie Appleby must not let summer of struggle turn into winter of discontent&#8230; and could this be Frodon&#8217;s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Appleby must not let summer of struggle turn into winter of discontent - Sports Love Me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/horse-racing\/appleby-must-not-let-summer-of-struggle-turn-into-winter-of-discontent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Appleby must not let summer of struggle turn into winter of discontent - Sports Love Me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"MARCUS TOWNEND: Charlie Appleby must not let summer of struggle turn into winter of discontent&#8230; 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