Desperate Hero and Tom Marquand winning the Highclere Castle Gin Handicap Stakes © Photo Healy Racing
Desperate Hero will continue plying his trade in top company, with Jack Channon confident he has a future star of the sprint division on his hands after his fine effort at Sandown.
Having steadily risen through the ranks, the four-year-old has excelled in handicaps this season, with back-to-back victories earning him a shot at the Group Three Coral Charge last Saturday.
Sent off at 5-1 in Esher, he made a bold bid from the front and surged clear with two furlongs to run before being cruelly hunted down by Ed Walker’s Makarova and Andrew Balding’s Purosangue in the closing stages.
However, Channon took plenty of encouragement from this brave first appearance in group company and feels his charge has proved he belongs at that level.
The handler said: “I think a lot of people thought he was home and hosed, but if you weren’t at Sandown you wouldn’t know there was a pretty severe headwind and the ground was pretty soft.
“I’ve always thought he was a horse who would be better on good ground even though he handles soft and I think that headwind, the ground and being hassled early, probably paid in the final furlong.
“I do think the way he showed them a clean pair of heels at the two-furlong pole shows you quite how good a horse he is and he is a horse I wouldn’t swap for any other horse in the division.”
Desperate Hero will now follow the “pretty straightforward” sprint programme for the rest of the campaign.
The King George Stakes during the Qatar Goodwood Festival (August 2) will be the son of Captain Gerrard’s next objective before marching on to York for the Coolmore Wootton Bassett Nunthorpe Stakes (August 23) and then the Curragh for the Flying Five Stakes on September 15.
“I think the calendar in the sprint division speaks for itself and there is a pretty straightforward route,” continued Channon.
“He will go to Goodwood and then onto the Nunthorpe, then Ireland and then that will probably be his season over.
“If he could pick one of them up this year, then that would be fantastic but he’s only four and a gelding and he will hopefully be around for many a year, so we will mind him as well and hopefully he is a horse we can have around for plenty of years to come.”
