By Tom Peacock
Every day this week, a member of the TDN's Europe/International team nominates a horse of the season. Tom Peacock selects the Ascot Gold Cup winner.
One performance during the course of a season will often provide the basis for a horse's rating. On sentimental and emotional handicapping calculations, the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot set a mark which no other passed in 2017.
The two and a half miles of Royal Ascot's time-honoured highlight is the true test of a great stayer. The ground should suit any flat horse with pretensions of beating the elite and there is not often the kind of crawling gallop which allows those with questionable stamina to get away with it.
Big Orange (GB) (Duke Of Marmalade {Ire}) had not been asked to try it before, having concentrated upon his globe-trotting adventures through the previous campaign but the race began to look a more realistic target after another brave fourth behind Vazirabad (Fr) (Manduro {Ger}) in Dubai and a relentless victory in the G2 Henry II S. at Sandown.
He was sent off the second-favourite against Order Of St George (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), with James Doyle in the plate instead of an injured Frankie Dettori. Even over the extra distance, it was never going to be sensible to shackle Big Orange's customary exuberance at the head of the field and he went for broke with two furlongs remaining.
It was a long two furlongs, with the 6-year-old looking as if he would be swallowed up any second as Ryan Moore wound up the market leader from a wide position and drew up to his flanks. I cannot recall many others going through the pain barrier like Big Orange did. Few could argue he has more ability than Order Of St George, the previous year's winner who has been placed in two Arcs. But Big Orange seemed to want it more, somehow finding enough in reserve despite a shortening stride to scramble past the line ahead.
For all that his owner-breeder Bill Gredley is a self-made multi-millionaire, Big Orange's connections are not exactly of the everyman variety. Nonetheless, there is a feeling that they share him with the public and the affection is reciprocated. Racegoers love a horse who wears his heart on his sleeve and the winner was awarded a suitable ovation.
Big Orange is also not bred to be a champion. By an unfashionable stallion out of an ordinary mare, he was gelded as a yearling and was a nervous, gangly ugly duckling of whom nobody had any hope at all. Through courage, speed, maturity and no shortage of class, he has become one of the most popular and enduring flat horses for years, evoking memories of Persian Punch (Ire) (Persian Heights {GB}) and Double Trigger (Ire) (Ela-Mana-Mou {GB}).
The feeling lingers that he might never recapture that form again after pushing himself through the limit, for all that he ran perfectly respectably when conceding 13lb to Stradivarius (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) in the G1 Goodwood Cup and getting stuck in neutral gear in the mud for the G2 Long Distance Cup on QIPCO British Champions Day.
Trainer Michael Bell will press on and take Big Orange back to Dubai in March, which could prompt a return in fortunes. Regardless of whether it does, we will always have that June afternoon to look back on.
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