James Doyle was thrown off Lazzat in a chaotic twist just moments after riding the four-year-old to victory at Royal Ascot. Lazzat, who is part-owned by the Emir of Qatar, held off a late surge from Satono Reve to win the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes for trainer Jerome Reynier. Flora Of Bermuda crossed the line in third place but was nowhere near the two frontrunners.
Doyle was on cloud nine as he celebrated his victory but was quickly brought back down to earth by Lazzat. Just as he was parking up for pictures and his post-race interview with ITV Racing, he was launched from the saddle in a bizarre turn of events. Lazzat, who still had energy to burn, immediately turned around and started galloping around the track.
Members of staff desperately tried to get Lazzat back under control, but he was having none of it as he continued to run around the course. Eventually, he was tracked down and led back to the winner’s enclosure so the celebrations could properly begin.
Doyle was unhurt in the strange incident and was able to laugh about it when he was finally interviewed on ITV Racing.
He said: “Trying to flash the sheet at him and he went around, but yeah, what can you say? I can’t take any credit for this at all. Jerome and his team, they know all about him.
His jockey from before, his young jockey in France, did a great job bringing him through the ranks. He also rode him in Australia when he ran such a good race in the Golden Eagle. We had all bases covered and I have to say that Jerome was very confident.
“He was saying all week: ‘Don’t worry about the ground, he’s fine’. We mapped the pace out and I just thought: ‘If I end up winning, I end up winning’. He [Reynier] said: ‘Don’t worry, he won’t stop’. It worked out perfectly.
“I could feel him [Satono Reve] coming, but you won’t get a more genuine horse than this. He really pinned his ears back when he joined me and he was always going to fend it off.
“It does help when you get a double on the first day, you can just relax into it. If I had a pound for every time someone said to me: ‘That’s it, the pressure is off’… but it’s completely the opposite.
“Especially with this horse today. I thought he was my banker of the week, which I feel a bit guilty because we only picked the horse up a couple of weeks ago and obviously I landed on him, but I have to say a huge thank you to all of the team.”
Reynier added: “It’s great to be able to achieve this huge performance. [Satono Reve] made a late challenge and it was pretty tough, but James knew he was never going to get beaten.
“He had plenty in his hands and he was very confident he was going to be able to bring him to the post. He [Lazzat] had a really good feeling and he’s unbeaten over straight courses, so now we can stick him to these kinds of competitions.
“AS you can see, he is a bit tricky and when he was a colt he was even tricker. We couldn’t really do what we wanted with him. On paper, he didn’t have the profile to be a future stallion.
“It was best to make sure we could use him and it has changed him from nothing to everything. He’s been really improving in training. He remained unbeaten after six starts, so we knew we had a proper sprinter.”
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