Taxi team out to hail King George success at Goodwood with Ornate

Hop into a taxi from Chichester up to Glorious Goodwood to watch the King George Qatar Stakes, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it £300,000 five-furlong contest that highlights the action on Friday, and you might just find that the driver will be parking you up in the owners and trainers area.

Garry Davidoff and business partner Debbie Finan jointly run Starline Taxis and this will be among their busiest weeks of the year as they ferry punters, owners, trainers and jockeys around the area to and from hotels, railway stations and golf courses.

But both have reason to feel an extra tingle of anticipation as the pair are part-owners of the rejuvenated sprinter Ornate, trained in Yorkshire by David Griffiths, a man who knows better than almost anyone exactly how to successfully target this race.

Griffiths sent Take Cover down to Glorious Goodwood six years in succession between 2013 and 2018, winning the King George Stakes twice and also finishing second twice more in the same contest.

Last year the old warrior bumped into Battaash and found his rival simply too hot to handle, as the Charlie Hills-trained winner produced one of the most impressive performances of his brilliant but somewhat enigmatic career.

Battaash’s imposing shadow again hangs over this year’s race, but Ornate’s supporters will be hoping that Griffiths’ special connection with the King George Stakes can see Ornate – a sprightly six-year-old given that Take Cover was an astonishing 11 when second 12 months ago – give them further thrills.

The connection between Davidoff and Ornate’s fellow owners was, of course, first established as a result of a Glorious Goodwood taxi trip.

“It was about 1am outside the Goodwood Park Hotel and things were starting to ease off when I got chatting to David, who was getting some fresh air, looking up to the skies, pacing up and down and muttering about not wanting any rain for Take Cover,” he explains.

“We hit it off straight away, and having always been a racing fan, I found myself rooting for Take Cover the next day.

“About four years ago, my business partner Debbie’s husband sadly passed away and we started talking about life and decided to get a few people together to buy a horse. The ‘Ladies and the Tramps’ syndicate bought Archimedes, who is still going strong, and has taken us all over the country.”

Then came the decision to move things up a level with the purchase of Ornate, already by that stage established as being a smart sprinter, albeit one who had a reputation for being somewhat quirky after spells with William Haggas and Robert Cowell.

The group went to the Tattersalls sale in October 2017 with a strict budget of £70,000 only to find themselves carried on the wings of excitement up to the final purchase price of 110,000 guineas (£115,500).

At first, the money didn’t look altogether well-spent as he produced disappointing efforts on his first four runs in 2018. But there were straws to clutch at for his new owners.

“David was adamant that there was more than he was showing us and kept saying ‘I will get to the bottom of this horse,” recalls fellow owner Adi Skeites, a friend of Davidoff since childhood and another longstanding Goodwood member and lover of racing.

“Oisin Murphy rode him in the King’s Stand Stakes and got off and said ‘It was like riding a Bentley on choke’. Two furlongs out they had been travelling so well, but something wasn’t right.

“We took him to the vets where they diagnosed level 3 ulcers and performed a tie-back operation to help his breathing. Then it was just a question of giving him time.”

With another of the partnership’s founding members dropping out, the remainder took the plunge to increase their stake. It was a gamble, but slowly, the old Ornate started to appear again. Dropped down the handicap and in grade, he made the placings again for the first time since his purchase when second at Southwell in December. The next month, he won two races within the space of four days. Then back on turf at Newmarket’s Craven meeting, he won a decent five-furlong handicap from a mark of 94.

Since then two more victories have arrived, most notably when claiming a £62,000 first prize in the Investec Dash on Derby day at Epsom. Defying a poor draw wide of the track, Ornate did what Ornate enjoys the most, bowling along in front and setting unmatchable fractions on a downhill track where momentum carried him past the winning post still in front.

“I’m not sure he’d want me to say this, but I literally carried Garry out of Epsom,” says Skeites. “It was an unforgettable day – I think we ended up with 14 bottles of champagne on the table, before we went back home to our local to carry on the celebrations. We celebrated with the owners of Duke Of Firenze, also trained by David, who ran in the same race.”

Davidoff adds: “I backed him for the Dash as soon as he had run in the Duke Of York Stakes on his previous start, because I could see that the fire was burning in him again, although I probably wouldn’t have done if I’d known he’d be drawn up the middle of the track.

“The dream, though, was always that he might win a race at Goodwood. And although Battaash is a very serious horse, I do think we’ve got a chance.

“He had a nice warm-up at Ascot a few days ago and David is giving us plenty of encouragement.” Debbie, Adi, Garry and the partnership’s fourth member, Steve Baxter (Griffiths also retains a share) promise to enjoy themselves on Friday, regardless of the result. The group go under the name of the King’s Road Partnership being Chelsea fans, who have successfully managed to combine seeing the horse with trips to some away matches.

It turns out, though, that the highs and lows of being football supporters are just as emotionally-taxing as owning racehorses.

“Having blown the budget at the sales, I think for the first six or seven months, we were all wondering quite what we had done with Ornate, but since then it has been a brilliant journey and we’ve already gone in again, buying another one with David called Bawtry Lady,” says Skeites, who admits to thinking that the bookmakers may have unfairly written Ornate’s Glorious Goodwood prospects.

“He lost a shoe, he had the worst of the draw, and he was giving weight away to plenty of them and yet he still wasn’t too far outside the world record in the Dash,” he explains. “If he turns up here at another downhill track that should suit and does 54 seconds again, then he’s not going to be bang there. I’ve only watched the replay about 1000 times so far.

“David does seem to have a knack with sprinters, although he’d tell you that he only enjoys them more because they give him less time to worry during the race! But I know he thinks he has got him absolutely spot-on again.”

Ornate loves fast ground, so the predominately dry weather forecast between now and the race offers encouragement. And if any of his owners want to find their talented trainer pacing up and down, looking at the skies and fretting about the prospect of rain, at least they will know where to take the taxi.