Grundy expected to beat Dahlia

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33904, 25 July 1975, Page 4 (Supplement)

Grundy expected to beat Dahlia

(Special Crspdt N 7. P A ) LONDON Grundy, the winner of the. English and Irish Derbys this year, remains a hot favourite for Britain's richest race, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes, which will be run at Ascot tomorrow, writes N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent, Neil Dibbs. Grundy will race just three more times before a series of assignations at the National Stud in Ireland with 33 picked females. The colt was quoted at 5 to 4 on more than a week before the great race, and that price was against a field of top-class elders. Among the acceptors is the great French mare. Dahlia. Dahlia, the winner of the Washington Laurel International and winner of this race for the last two years, w'ill be ridden by Lester Piggott. As usual. Grundy will be ridden by Pat Eddery. Dahlia’s, great rival, Allez France, is suffering from a virus complaint and will not start. Other runners include last year’s English SI Lcger winner. Bustino. which broke the Epsom mile and a half record at his last start when winning the Coronation Cup; Ashmore, from France; the top German horse. Star Appeal: and the high-class Irish mare. Dibidale.

Tomorrow’s race will coincide exactly with the start of the Grundy legend 12 months ago. Two races before Daldia swept to success in tire 1974 Stakes. Grundy made his debut in a fire furlong race for two-year-oids. The flashy chestnut speared through a gap two furlongs out and won the Granville Stakes by six lengths ‘‘That’s a good horse in the making.” some people observed. But if anybody had suggested Grundy would be odds on 12 months later to beat the likes of Dahlia and Bustino. he would have been given a breath test. Nine races later Grundv has arrived at that point, poised to shatter Mill Reefs $525,334 record for British-based horses. Two losses marred his record along the way, both at the start of his thrcc-ycar-old season and before he was properly into stride as the dashing Derby champion. He was beaten first-up by a length by' Mark Anthony, which has finished down the track to the champion twice since then. At bis second start he was narrowly beaten in the Two Thousand Guineas by Bolkonski (Italy!- But Grundy's trainer. Peter Walwyn, now slates that he would have no hesitation matching $NZ175.000 with Bolkonskl's connections in a grudge race over any distance from six furlongs to two miles There lias been no word from the Bolkonski camp. The nice tiring about Gnmdv is that he really looks a cham pion. The colt is a ball of muscle, and his burnished chestnut coat shines out in a packed field. When he gallops, his blonde mane and tail stream behind him. He arches his neck In the saddling paddock with the »g<ression of the valuable stallion he Is. as though he knows he Is » splendid animM to look at.