The staff at John Gosden’s Clarehaven Stables in Newmarket have a lot of horses to be proud of this season, including Roaring Lion, Too Darned Hot, Enable and Cracksman, but another horse altogether may have his nose just in front of all of them in the popularity stakes right now.
The heroic achievement of Stradivarius in winning the G2 Yorkshire Cup in May, the G1 Gold Cup at Royal Ascot in June, the G1 Qatar Goodwood Cup in July and the G2 Weatherbys Hamilton Lonsdale Cup at York three and a half weeks later meant the 4-year-old scooped the inaugural Weatherbys Hamilton Stayers’ Million.
Seventy percent of the £1 million bonus goes to the owner, with the other 30 percent divided equally between trainer, jockey, breeder and the stable staff.
The staff received their share at Clarehaven yesterday, although it wasn’t £75,000 as it turned out - owner Bjorn Nielsen added £25,000 of his own to make it up to £100,000.