Elite Status too good for Hackwood field

Elite Status thrived once again at Newbury as he claimed the Fidelity Energy Hackwood Stakes in taking fashion.

Always held in high-regard as a two-year-old, Karl Burke’s colt made a winning return over track and trip in the Carnarvon Stakes earlier in the season.

He missed the chance to scoop Royal Ascot honours in the Commonwealth Cup due to a late setback, but gained compensation in this Group Three event.

Able to track the pace set by Quinault and Regional, Clifford Lee was always travelling powerfully aboard the 5-2 favourite and once making his move for home, he had more than enough in hand to hold off the fast-finishing Ascot runner-up Lake Forest.

Burke told ITV Racing: “It was very frustrating (to miss Ascot) and we were gutted we couldn’t take on (owner) Sheikh Mohammed Obaid’s other horse Inisherin in the Commonwealth.

“It’s not a serious injury, it’s just an annoying one, like having a cut on a foot and you keep touching it. He’s wrapped up all the time and has stable bandages on and as long as he doesn’t touch it in exercise – which he hasn’t since Ascot – and it gets chance to heal and harden off and the longer he goes without touching it and opening up the wound, the better he will be.

“(Stablemate) Korker was doing the same and through the winter we got it right and he hasn’t touched it since, so they can grow out of it. I think it is a little bit of a weakness physically where they are not quite tracking up properly and their hind leg is just coming through and just touching their front leg.

“I think Elite Status is really talented and he has a huge stride on him. I made a mistake, and Sheikh Obaid keeps reminding me, that I ran him in the Norfolk after what was a scintillating win that he had in the Sandown Listed race before Royal Ascot last year.

“He looked all speed to me then but Sheikh Mohammed Obaid said ‘no, he’s got a big, long stride and let him use it over six furlongs’. I went against that advice and ran him in the Norfolk rather than the Coventry and regretted it.

“I would say he is a six-furlong specialist and I don’t think we would want to stretch him any further than that. Having said that, I don’t think he was 100 per cent fit again today because when he won the Listed race here in the spring, he had a real heave and we thought ‘great. that will put him right for Ascot’ but then after that we were stop-start and he’s having a nice healthy blow again now.”

On future plans, Burke added: “Haydock will be the plan.”