Racing: Beautiful journey ends but Choisir goes down fighting

Remarkable Australian sprinter finally meets his match as Oasis Dream swoops to take revenge

They would have carried Choisir out on a shield here yesterday, but there was neither one big enough nor sufficient able-bodied racegoers to transport the Australian bull.

While Oasis Dream was the legitimate winner of Europe's premier sprint, the July Cup, it was largely because this was the sole battle for which he had been prepared. The heaving runner-up had been wielding his broadsword for the last three weeks or so in Britain, firstly with the twin victories of the King's Stand and Golden Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot and then yesterday's honourable display. We will remember this as the summer of Choisir.

Even John Gosden, Oasis Dream's trainer, appreciated the efforts of Paul Perry's big horse. "It's great to take on a tough nut like that," he said. "I just thought it was a hell of a race. A great horse race."

Johnny Murtagh, the jockey, considered Choisir had run to the same form as Ascot, but Perry's view was that his horse was entering the first level of degradation.

"The winner was the fresh horse trained for the race," he said. "This horse, you may say, is on the way down a bit. This was a bit of an afterthought. I suppose you'd take into consideration he's had the long trip and a good bit of racing earlier on before he came over here. It was never the plan to run, so you'd have to be very happy with him. He ran very courageously."

Choisir's has been the biggest racing story of the modern era in Australia. Television sets were switched on across the nation just before midnight local time when the horses started preparing for the July Cup. Even from 11,000 miles away Choisir would not have been difficult to identify.

Under the tree canopy of the pre-parade ring, the four-year-old looked truly terrifying, a huge, animated beast wearing the bug-eye headgear of net domes. He possessed an immense backside which would have been more in place at a corrida. Oasis Dream is no weakling either, yet he appeared a much more dainty and elegant figure in comparison.

Murtagh started Choisir off to post at the trot. He understood he was sitting on nitroglycerine, something that was ready to go. Nothing, well nothing from this earth at least, could have denied Choisir getting to the lead. He was soon gusting down the rail with Murtagh gripping on tight to the handles. It was awesome.

The men behind Oasis Dream had determined they must not let the Australian horse get out of sight. Thus, Richard Hughes was soon moving at an oblique angle on his 9-2 shot, travelling fast and sideways from the No 11 stall until he came alongside Striking Ambition and third in behind the leader.

"I actually missed the kick," Hughes reported. "He was standing so quiet that I just let him be. He was definitely a length down compared with the ones behind him, but, within 50 yards, I was in front of them, tanking along."

Oasis Dream challenged the favourite at the two-furlong pole, where both horses began to feel leather. Choisir did not appear quite as dynamic, quite as self-contained as before, but he did not capitulate. They would not have let him in back home if they had done that. But while it had been his turn in the King's Stand Stakes, now it was the moment in the cycle for Oasis Dream, who had been third that day.

Gosden's colt went away for a length and half victory as Choisir, for the first time in the northern hemisphere, looked a weak and vulnerable figure. The fighting instinct still glowed enough, however, for the bull to hang on to second from Airwave and secure another considerable payday.

For Gosden it was the culmination of months at the drawing board. The nation had been waiting to see his champion two-year-old of last season but the champ looked fairly dreadful in the spring. He was a runt and ill-prepared for combat. He could have been rushed but that would also have been a scurry down the fast-lane to burn-out.

"We could have forced him and gone for a Guineas trial, but then we would not be here now," Gosden said. "We'd have had a horse used up. From the way things have turned out it was a blessing in disguise that he could not run in the Guineas.

"I have no doubts that he can get farther in time, but, at the moment, the logical step seems to be following the sprinting route - the Nunthorpe, the Haydock Sprint Cup and the Abbaye."

It had been a great July Cup, with twin rewards. With Oasis Dream there is a glorious future to contemplate, the promise of further glories. For Choisir, it was the end of the line, the end for us all of a beautiful journey.

RICHARD EDMONDSON

Nap: Seel Of Approval

(Ascot 3.15)

NB: Material Witness

(Chepstow 8.40)