Frankie Dettori ends Paddington streak to break Lester Piggott’s York record

The seven-race winning sequence of Aidan O’Brien’s leading three-year-old Paddington was finally brought to an end in yesterday’s £1 million Juddmonte International Stakes by Mostahdaf as Frankie Dettori drew away from Lester Piggott with a record sixth victory in York’s best race.

Four-runner races are invariably tactical and both Dettori and trainer John Gosden were clear that giving a head start and 7lb to the Irish colt seeking a fifth-straight Group One success would have been mission impossible, so the jockey flew the gates and opened up an uncontested three-length lead.

Sounds simple but it was then just a question of setting the perfect fractions and, as Dettori reflected afterwards, he has a pretty good idea after 36 years in the business of how to do that.

He was still three lengths clear three furlongs out and when Paddington came under pressure from Ryan Moore, it was a case of what Mostahdaf had left. The answer was plenty and he stayed on to beat his stablemate Nashwa a length with Paddington, battling on again late, finishing a neck further back in third.

This time last year I dare say Dettori could not depart soon enough for Gosden. Now the trainer is joking about him about winning so many big races that he might be tempted to stay on and, though he was ostensibly third choice behind Sheikha Hissa’s two stable jockeys (Jim Crowley banned and Dane O’Neill injured), he proved the perfect man for Mostahdaf on Wednesday.

“There was only one way of playing it to beat Paddington,” explained Dettori, whose first victory in the race was on Halling in 1996. “That was to go out in front, make it a proper gallop and get the fractions right, not too fast, not too slow. I’ve had 36 years of practice at that. Giving a champion three-year-old 7lbs you want to be in front not behind. It is a big team effort and Jim was very helpful. I feel sorry for him.

“I could hear Hollie [Doyle, riding Nashwa] coming on the inside late on but he was brilliant. I knew when I had two lengths of rope it would take a good one to get past me. He’s a cracking ride but he’s Jim’s horse not mine.

“I’m the first person to win it six times which makes me very proud to pass Lester in my last year and to finish at York like this.”

Mostahdaf has really blossomed at five. He was already the second joint highest-rated turf horse in the world and after this he may nudge into a clear second behind the Japanese star Equinox. He has now proved to be tactically flexible too, having come from last at Ascot to win the Prince of Wales’s Stakes by four lengths, clearly not a one-off performance.

“He’s a proper horse and the filly [Nashwa] is a good filly,” said Gosden. “The plan was to make it a proper test. If Ryan had been in front he’d have been able to give Paddington a breather and do as he pleased. It’s Roberto and Brigadier Gerard [the first running of the race in 1972] all over again. The other horse is marvellous and has been a busy horse.

“Frankie is the only guy who can go to Longchamp and make the running and have the French jockeys doing what he wants them to do. He’s a chameleon, he can adapt to any situation.”

O’Brien, whose Continuous earned a quote of 4-1 for the St Leger after victory in the Sky Bet Great Voltigeur, was inclined to blame himself for Paddington’s first defeat on his seventh start of the season.

“He ran a great race,” he said, “but I think I might have stretched the elastic band too far. He had a tough race at Goodwood. Ryan felt he was a bit flat. Maybe I should have waited a bit longer.”