King Charles III could have two runners in this year’s Melbourne Cup after English import Desert Hero was transferred to Ciaron Maher following a disappointing first run in Australia.
Trained by William Haggas, Desert Hero has long been touted as a potential Melbourne Cup horse and was set to make the trip as a three-year-old in 2023 after he won the King George V Stakes during Royal Ascot and the G3 Gordon Stakes at Goodwood. However, he was instead given a break after finishing third in the G1 St Leger behind Continuous.
In four starts as an older horse, he has performed below expectations with his best effort a second to Okeechobee in the G3 Gordon Richards Stakes over a mile and a quarter at Sandown. He finished a distant 16th behind Alalcance in last weekend’s G2 Chairman’s Handicap (2600m) at Randwick.
Haggas confirmed that Desert Hero would remain in Australia following the Sydney autumn.
“He came out of it fine, he actually didn’t sort of seem to take the race too hard, weirdly,” Issy Paul, Haggas’ travelling assistant, told Idol Horse. “I was expecting that he might take it really hard. It was a little bit frustrating how the race panned out, they went pretty slow and it just didn’t suit him. Ryan (Moore) was quite apologetic afterwards, he thought he should have kept rolling forward.
“I think with a bit more time and more acclimatisation, he should be really well suited down here. I hope he’ll run some nice races, he’s a top class stayer. He looks amazing, he’s light but his coat looks fantastic and he seems to really enjoy it so I hope that he is successful.”
Idol Horse understands that Desert Hero will leave his temporary Canterbury quarantine base for a Queensland spelling paddock, where he will join another recent stable recruit in G1 New Zealand Derby winner Willydoit as well as G1 George Ryder Stakes hero Gringotts.
Desert Hero becomes the King’s second horse to join the Maher stable. He already prepares lightly raced Gilded Water, a winner of two of his three starts in Australia who – despite his relatively low rating – is highly touted given his defeat of the autumn’s staying star Alalcance late last year.
Should either Desert Hero or Gilded Water make it to the Melbourne Cup, King Charles III will become the second British monarch – and therefore Australian monarch – to have a runner in the race. His mother Queen Elizabeth II owned Arabian Story, who finished sixth to Might And Power in 1997.
It would also mean that it would be the first time that the monarch’s second set of colours, in which the black cap is replaced with a crimson cap, would be seen in Australia ∎
