LEAD ARTIST wore down Dancing Gemini in the final strides to deny Roger Teal a fairytale Lockinge win at Newbury.
Teal’s well-backed 2-1 favourite headed the eventual winner with a furlong to run, but the petrol tank began to empty and John Gosden’s runner got back up close home.
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It was heartbreak for nice guy Teal, who was seeking just his third Group 1 win, but he took it on the chin and is up for another crack at the winner.
There was promise, too, from Richard Hannon’s Classic winner Rosallion, who was a few lengths away in third on his first run for nearly a year.
But it was Gosden who had the last laugh, winning a Group 1 just 10 days after sacking Kieran Shoemark as his stable jockey.
He will no doubt feel his decision has been vindicated after Oisin Murphy steered home 17-2 shot Lead Artist by a neck, a result Gosden admitted he didn’t see coming.
He said: “It was a very strong Lockinge and if you’d asked me beforehand I’d have said we’d be in the first three, I didn’t expect him to win.
“He is a lovely horse and he’s won over nine furlongs before, so Ryan came at us from off the pace and used up petrol and we’ve just been able to get back past him.
“We’ll go to the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot now where I expect we’ll meet several of these horses again, and it should be a hell of a race.”
Dancing Gemini will definitely be there, and Teal said he won’t duck and dive his way through the season with his stable star.
The Lambourn trainer said last month he wanted to emulate last season’s top miler Charyn, and so far the four-year-old is sticking to the script.
Teal said: “We said we were going to try and do a Charyn and he was second in the Lockinge last year, so it’s not the end of the world. We’ve run better than Charyn did, he ran great.
“Ryan said the ground was probably a bit lively for him, it was the quickest ground he’s been on.
“We don’t duck and dive, we’ve only gone down a neck and he has put the rest of the field to bed so we’ll go to the Queen Anne now.
“It was a bit of an awkward draw, we had to take him back further than we wanted to. He’s gone down on his sword and he’s a Group 1 winner waiting to happen.”
Hannon was a bag of nerves before Rosallion’s long overdue return to action, but he was pleased with the colt after such a long lay-off.
He said: “It was a very good run, he was pretty fit coming here but there is nothing like race fitness.
“I’ve no doubt he’ll improve loads for that, so we will go again and head to Ascot.”
