Sussex Stakes stunner: Why racing’s biggest shock happened

Racing is gloriously unscripted, and the only thing predictable about the Qatar Sussex Stakes on Wednesday was that Juddmonte ended up winning it. Except not with their outstanding miler, a long odds-on favourite, but with an unheralded 150-1 chance who was merely supposed to be his pacemaker.

The best miler of this season, Field Of Gold, was expected to turn one of the most decorated races of the season into a lap of honour and was sent off a red-hot 1-3 favourite to follow up his emphatic victories in the Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes.

Instead, it was Qirat, a gelding in the same ownership, whose role was to help tee things up for him, who crossed the line in front at 150-1. There has never been such a shock in a Group One contest. Commiserations if you backed him the Royal Hunt Cup at Ascot last month, when he trailed home 27th.

Field Of Gold never looked comfortable and trailed home fourth. Perhaps his elastic band had been pulled a little too far in recent months.

A star has never been so outshone since Heath Ledger completely upstaged Christian Bale in The Dark Knight. The ace in this particular pack was definitely undone by a Joker.

Ralph Beckett, his trainer, was already pinching himself after his two fillies in the earlier Group Three race had dead-heated at 16-1 and 9-2. It was that kind of afternoon.

“I’ll take it, they [Group One races] are hard to come by,” Richard Kingscote, the jockey of Qirat, told Racing TV viewers. “It’s very surreal. He’s sweet horse, a push-button ride.” And then he volunteered: “I like my fractions.”

Ah, yes. Fractions. They added up to a tale of chaos, with the RaceiQ data taking all the guessing out of the equation and informing us as to exactly what occurred.

Qirat broke best, reaching 20mph in just 2.4 seconds, and assumed his position at the head of affairs. By contrast, the other pacemarker in the field, Serengeti, broke sluggishly and was slowest to reach 20mph.

Kingscote had been asked to set an honest rather than breakneck gallop and probably overdid that early on. Consequently, the whole field meandered through the first two furlongs before Wayne Lordan, on Serengeti, relieved him off his front-running role and strode on.

But the 300-1 shot was effectively ignored and would end up trailing home last.

Kingscote declined a speed duel and was content to tuck into second place. The other five jockeys in the field sat off the pair of them, eyeing each other up but disregarding what was ahead of them.

They were playing poker with each other, but the cards were stacking up against them.

The overall gallop had been extremely slow and a three-furlong dash was about to unfold.

Serengeti clung on to the lead until two out but the first horse waiting to pounce on him was Qirat. Suddenly, the others had him to peg back and were running out of time.

Qirat had poached a lead and his closing sectionals – 11.22sec, 11.15sec and 11.52sec – were enough for him to keep the cavalry at bay.

Rosallionflew home, reeling off 10.96sec, 10.65sec and 11.25sec final furlongs but the damage had been done. His Finishing Speed percentage of 111.25%, was easily best of the bunch but will be of little consolation to his connections, especially after his nose defeat in the Queen Anne last month.

Everything else, except for Serengeti, also finished off the race in full flight, but Kingscote and Qirat had already burgled the £600,000 first prize.