Haydock wrap: Al Aasy swoops right on time in feature
Full replay: Al Aasy swoops to land the Rose Of Lancaster Stakes
Al Aasy lunged late to secure a last-gasp victory in the Betfred Rose of Lancaster Stakes at Haydock.
Beaten only a neck by Pyledriver in the 2021 Coronation Cup at Epsom, the William Haggas-trained six-year-old has since been gelded and an Ascot Listed win was his only appearance of last season.
He was tailed off on his return to action at Newmarket, but bounced back to winning ways at Newbury three weeks later and he was a 6-5 favourite to follow up at Group Three level on Merseyside.
Ridden by Jim Crowley, Al Aasy was settled at the rear of the field for much of 10-furlong journey before being produced with a withering late run.
He had had to dig deep in the closing stages to reel in El Drama, but got up in the dying strides to prevail by a neck. Midnight Mile was almost three lengths further back in third.
"He's always been talented"
Maureen Haggas, assistant to her husband, said: “He was good today, both horse and jockey were good. Jim said he was cool throughout and it just fell apart in front of him a bit, so the horse had to work. To his credit he did and he got there.
“He’s had his ups and downs, but he’s always been a talented horse and I think bringing him back to a mile and a quarter has been a good thing. He travels through the race well and he really looked like he was enjoying himself today.
“He’s been perhaps unfairly criticised, but since we’ve had him gelded we’ve never really classed him as ungenuine. He’s been a bit unfortunate once or twice, though before he was gelded he was definitely thinking about other things and since it has helped him.
“Next steps are for William to work out. He’s won Group Three races before and he’s been competitive at Group One level before and although he’s old he’s a bit like Hamish in that he hasn’t got many miles on the clock.
“If you look after these horses they’ll keep going and if they’re enjoying it they’ll keep going because they haven’t been over-worked.
“Jim was great and he’s getting the hang of him. It sounds a silly thing to say, but you’ve got to kid him into it and he was brilliant at that. He said that it wasn’t the horse’s fault that the race rather fell apart in front of him and he just had to help him out, which he did. As a pair they were very good.”
"It's good to get him back"
Crowley added: “That was nice. He’s getting his confidence again and it’s good to get him back. He’s a horse who likes to follow and to be honest the race didn’t go that smoothly, I don’t think we went that quick but it worked out okay in the end.”
Kathab kickstarts good day for Haggas
Replay: Kathab runs out a ready winner of the opener
Stablemate Kathab (11-2) ensured that Haggas began the card with a 13-1 double, when impressing to win the opening Betfred 'Play Fred's £5 Million' Handicap over a mile.
The son of Kingman was a heavily odds-on favourite when getting off the mark in good style at Ripon last month and he was in similar form here, travelling into the race smoothly under Jim Crowley before picking up proceedings in the final furlong.
And Maureen Haggas revealed that she was pleased to see her charge begin to click into place.
She said: “He’s getting the hang of it at last. He looked promising on his first run at Newmarket (in April) and he’s not really progressed, but his last couple of races have been better.
“He was really good today, he took everything in his stride and settled better, so he’s getting the hang of things.
“We’ll see what the handicapper does, he doesn’t do anything quickly so he needs a strong pace and hopefully in the bigger fields and stronger race he’ll get that. The way he’s run today suggests we’ve got the option of stepping him up in trip, so we’ll see how we go.”
