David Simcock is looking forward to returning to Canada in a bid to win the Gr1 Pattison Canadian International for a second time after Desert Encounter (15/2, Jamie Spencer) was produced late to beat Mirage Dancer (4/6, Ryan Moore) readily by two and a quarter lengths in the Gr3 L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate Glorious Stakes over a mile and a half.
Simcock said: “That was fun to watch. You don’t have to give Jamie too many instructions. He surprised us slightly at Newmarket, but we knew he was getting to his time of year. We pretty much knew he was there today and so we were quietly confident. We’ve always said August, September and October are his time of year.
“He’s been asked to dance some pretty tough dances in King Georges and so on, and he’s very quick to say ‘no’ if it’s too tough. You could almost call him a small field bully, or a Group 3 bully, but with no three-year-olds in the race, and everything exposed, it was quite good for him today.
“Jamie enjoyed riding him and it’s nice to see a jockey like that ride a horse like that. We didn’t let Jamie ride him until today this season, when we felt we were getting really close to where we wanted to be.”
Desert Encounter beat Thundering Blue at Woodbine last October, and that’s where he is headed again.
Simcock said: “We’ll probably go down a similar route and we’ll go Windsor then Newbury, or possibly just Newbury and then Canada. He should go there with a good chance I should think.”
Mirage Dancer (4/6 favourite) found one too good in the form Desert Encounter (15/2).
Trained in Newmarket by Sir Michael Stoute and owned by Khalid Abullah, the five-year-old Frankel horse didn’t overly disappoint Judmonte’s racing manager Lord Grimthorpe, who said: “The pace was a little bit muddling, but he was travelling well enough. He was produced with every chance and just found one too good. We will have a think about where we go next.”
