Michael Dods had a day he won’t forget in a long time when Arapaho Gold took his unbeaten sequence to four when landing the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes at York last Friday, taking the trainer passed the £500,000 prize money barrier.
Dods’ 36 winners so far leave him just seven short of his 2025 total of 43 when banking £547,566 in prize money. With his current stable star being earmarked for the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury on September 19 – live on Sky Sports Racing - he could be in for a bumper finish to the campaign.
The Denton Hall trainer is no stranger to the big time having won the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes with Mecca’s Angel in 2015 and 2016 and Mabs Cross was another mare with which Dods excelled with when she won the Group 1 Prix de L’Abbaye de Longchamp in 2018. However, Dods sees his current stable star as a completely different ball game.
He explained: ‘They were different types of horses - both five-furlong specialists. Mecca’s Angel was just a speedball sitting handy whereas Mabs Cross used to sit further back and just kept going and they did it later in their careers. Arapaho Gold has come through and sort of surprised us as when we broke him in, being by Bayside Boy, we were thinking of probably setting him off over six or seven furlongs and going from there.’
‘However, his work was so good we said may just give him a run over five and Connor’s (Beasley) words were that it doesn’t matter about the distance because his class will get him through. That proved 100 per cent correct and then he we went to six and he’s just been a total revelation.’
‘This year we’ll obviously stay at six with the Mill Reef in the pipeline but he could flip between six and seven furlongs next year as he’s got a big stride and travels quite strongly in his races. Hopefully, there are some exciting times ahead.’
Here, the County Durham-based trainer kindly guided Tony Elves through his plans for Arapaho Gold and other inmates at Denton Hall for attheraces.com readers.
