Richard Hannon © Photo Healy Racing
It is hard to quantify how much confidence a racehorse does or does not have. But any shortfall in Rosallion’s self-belief has always been more than compensated for by his trainer.
Richard Hannon has never been reticent when it comes to the horse, happily proclaiming him as the best he has ever trained, even at a relatively early stage in his career.
The Everleigh handler never flinched despite his clear shock when the Blue Point colt was beaten in the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster and his admirable stablemate Haatem, who finished behind him in both the English and Irish 2000 Guineas, has at times unwittingly found himself slightly damned with faint praise in his shadow.
Rosallion was set a tough task at Royal Ascot, the St James’s Palace Stakes had attracted the English and French 2000 Guineas winners in Notable Speech and Metropolitan among other classy horses – but neither can have been strengthened by pure confidence in the way Rosallion is.
A 5-2 chance, Rosallion raced in midfield and on the turn of the bend looked in need of room, but Sean Levey guided him through a gap and went off in pursuit of Aidan O’Brien’s Henry Longfellow.
With his head down Hannon’s bay was eventually a resolute winner, triumphing by a neck in the sort of performance Hannon has been warning the racing fraternity about since his two-year-old season.
“We’ve always loved him, sometimes as a trainer you run away with yourself and get proven wrong, but he’s utterly brilliant,” he said.
“I never want to see the race again! It was a great result, but he looked like he’d get there, then he looked like he wouldn’t, Aidan was right when he said that horse (Henry Longfellow) would improve massively (from first run of season in French Guineas).
“He’s run a very solid race and it was such a deep race with three Guineas winners among a lot of other very good horses.
“It’s very special to be part of it and winning races here, as we all know, is so hard. We’ll enjoy it.”
Clearly emotional, Hannon added: “My mother has just called me to say ‘well done’ and that always gets me going!
“Physically he looks like superman, he’s a beautiful horse and whatever he does he does it so easily.
“He’s already given us a lot of great moments, you get so much disappointment with horses, but it’s balanced out by a horse like this.”
