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Enable wins King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes 2019

Enable’s amazing unbeaten run was put firmly to the test on Saturday in the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, with the John Gosden-trained horse given a gruelling battle by Crystal Ocean before getting up on the line.

The mare is truly going to go down as a Flat horse racing great, with Enable having claimed successive wins during 2019 after previously winning the Coral Eclipse Stakes and is now among the favourites to win the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

It has been thought that Enable would have one more run in Britain before aiming to land a brilliant hat-trick at Longchamp, although trainer Gosden has now intimated that the horse’s next appearance will be on 6 October in the French capital.

As it stands, the five-year-old is currently entered in both the Juddmonte International Stakes and Darley Yorkshire Oaks for the Ebor Meeting towards the end of August, although connections are mulling over the possibility of simply going straight to Longchamp in search of a magical hat-trick.

Gosden told Racing TV: "She's very expressive and will tell us what she wants to do. It's whether we go to York or straight to the Arc. We'll make those decisions in the next week.

"She's in two races at York so it will be a later decision as to which one we go for as we would be training for the same meeting. The main decision though is whether we go to York or not."

Frankie Dettori continued his vintage 2019 by riding Enable to her latest victory, with the mare having an epic battle with Crystal Ocean and it was hard to predict the winner of a tussle that took place during the final two furlongs of the race.

Gosden had previously predicted that his horse shouldn’t have been race favourite and that comment raised a few eyebrows although Enable was made to work very hard to get over the line first.

“You had the best older horse and the best older filly taking on horses with that level of quality and they outclassed the whole field,” Gosden said. “It was a proper King George – what more could racing have asked for?

“She showed a lot of guts. Crystal Ocean said to her ‘I’m going to win this’ and she said back ‘no, I am’, and she really showed mental toughness and so did he.”

Dettori has seen it all during his two decades at the top of Flat horse racing, although the Italian had worked like never before to earn the latest victory and paid testament to the runner-up as well as his own horse.

“I don’t want too many races like that because I’m absolutely exhausted,” he said. “In all my career that was the hardest-fought big race I’ve had, with two champions fighting it out.

“Give credit to Crystal Ocean, he put it out there for me and it was an amazing race. He was a bit like one of those flies that wouldn’t go away and he was always there annoying me to the line.

"I knew he was the one to beat as he’s very strong around here and once I put my head in front I thought I was going to see it out. In fairness he served it up to me and we had a right titanic battle, but I always had the edge.”