It was a while ago, but the race was so unusual that we would like to remind you of it again. It was on Thursday 8 June in the last race of the always enormously well-attended Thursday evening races in ParisLongchamp. One could only agree with the English commentator Ian Bartlett, who spoke of Gagarin`s Moon having "stolen" the victory.
Only six horses were at the start. It did not take long to find the winner, as the five-year-old trained by Georgios Alimpinisis pulled away from his rivals right from the start and won by a huge margin of 30 lengths over second-placed Brokeback Mountain.
Ridden by Sylvain Ruis, the Sea The Moon son, who had entered the race at odds of 21.4-1, set the early pace and was not to be shaken as he pulled away by seven lengths in the back straight and extended his lead as the race progressed. The chasers couldn`t get near the winner on the home straight, leaving Bartlett completely stunned as he commented on the race.
"Oh my God, he`s almost 200 metres ahead," Bartlett said halfway through the race. "Gagarin`s Moon is miles ahead and the others are just crawling - they are 25 lengths behind now! Gagarin`s Moon is a gift - they certainly can`t catch him now."
Gagarin`s Moon, owned by Rashit Shaykhutdinov, had trailed Bevan by more than 16 lengths at the start earlier at Longchamp, while his last win came at Clairefontaine in August 2021.
This success marked his fourth career win, and Bartlett added after the finish: "Gagarin`s Moon has been slowly but surely stealing the hit."
The sufferers were the bettors, because if the other jockeys slept like that, their money was gone, which needn`t have happened. There had been something similar once years ago, when the German-owned Alkuin had run away in front and the competition had also done nothing to close the gap. In such cases, the stewards must also issue penalties, because otherwise the door is opened to manipulation.
