'It's a great shame he's handing in his licence, he can certainly do the job' - Kingscote laments Dalgleish departure

Keith Dalgleish underlined what a loss he will be to the training profession by coaxing yet more improvement out of the remarkable Chichester and seeing him land a first Listed win.

The six-year-old, a maiden when bought for just 30,000gns in 2020, scored his sixth career success in the £70,000 Seat Unique Ganton Stakes, battling on well under Richard Kingscote to prevail by a length and three-quarters.

It took the 2021 Carlisle Bell winner's earning to nearly £185,000 for owners Ian and Catriona Good since joining Dalgleish, who announced in February that he is to give up this season after 12 years with a licence.

"He did it well, didn't he?" the trainer said. "My only doubt before the race was the small field and whether there might not be much pace on, but there was quite a strong gallop for a small field and that played to his strengths.

"He has no entries at Royal Ascot. We chose to come here instead and we'll wait and see where he runs next. He seems to improve every year. He was well bought for us by Ted Durcan."

Kingscote, who was riding Chichester for just the third time, said: "He was well placed in a five-runner Listed race with good money. Keith knows what he's doing and it's a great shame he's handing in his licence. He can certainly do the job."

Dalgleish, who has broken the record for most winners in a Flat season by a Scottish-based trainer five times since 2014 and has sent out approaching 1,000 winners under both codes combined, has yet to decide exactly when he will end his career.

"It will be some time in the summer," he said. "I won't be going on until the end of the season. I'm selling quite a lot of horses at the July sale and that won't leave me with too many. We'll see what happens after that."

Ollie good 

If it's a valuable two-year-old seller, it must be Ollie Pears. He won the £20,000 juvenile plate at Musselburgh a fortnight ago with Gray's Inn and followed up by landing the £25,000 SKF Rous Selling Stakes here with Celestial Flight.

It was his second success in this contest, the richest of its type in Britain, since 2016 and the trainer has also had two third places and a fourth in that period.

Pears, who had four runners in the field this time, said: "I have a lot of horses of this type and it gives owners a fantastic day out with an inexpensive horse.

"This was always the plan for Celestial Flight and I thought he was our best chance. He ran well first time at Beverley but he was green and backward there. He was always going to come on for that and I didn't run him again because if he'd been unplaced twice he might have been balloted out.

"It's been a good day. He'll go on from this and he'll stay seven furlongs."

Planas sailing 

Connor Planas warmed up for his mount on ante-post favourite Quinault in Saturday's £100,000 Macmillan Sprint Handicap by riding his first winner at York.

The 19-year-old took the apprentice handicap on the first-time-visored Menelaus, his fourth ride at the track.

'It's important to spread the message of what we're doing'

Racing's efforts to underline its openness to the LGBT+ community continued with the third running of the Racing With Pride Fillies' Handicap at York.

Radio Goo Goo won the 6f race, which is backed by the British EBF, and Racing with Pride chair David Letts said: "We're building on the activity of the last two years. The first year was lower key because of the Covid situation but last year we had a big presence of people from Racing with Pride and a local LGBT+ rugby club to open up racing to a new audience.

"An important part is to let newcomers do things like go down to the start, to pick the best turned out and to show them the intricacies of a day at the races, rather than just coming on a social day out and not engaging with the sport itself.

"After last year's event, one of the individuals who was having their first day racing has now gone into ownership in a syndicate on the back of enjoying it so much."

Letts also said his organisation and York had taken the message of inclusivity to York Pride this month.

"The racecourse and Racing with Pride had a presence, handing out leaflets about today to increase engagement and encourage people who might not be aware of the inclusivity of racing," he said.

"The perceptions of racing are possibly not as positive as we'd like them to be and it's important to spread the message of what we're doing, to get them to come along and experience it for themselves."

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