Sean Levey talks Rosallion's Deauville chances: 'He deserves to get his head in front"

After previewing his three rides at Newbury on Saturday, Sean Levey also looks ahead to his huge ride with Rosallion at Deauville on Sunday.

• Rosallion - Deauville - 2:50 race odds

Rosallion will leave tonight [Friday] to go over to Deauville. I was there yesterday and the ground was absolutely perfect. Look, we obviously just want to go one better. We're all very happy with him at home... I just think he deserves to get his head in front.

In terms of my own position with Rosallion and what the future might look like off the back of the Sussex Stakes, to answer that, the conversation [around anyone else riding him] was never presented to me, so I've not thought anything of it.

But, like I said, we're 100% confident with how he's been since Goodwood and we're hopeful we can get him back to winning ways.

Speaking to Ladbrokes earlier this month, after the Sussex Stakes, Levey said:

I was wrong to disregard the winner. But, at the same time, I'm delighted with Rosallion's run. You know, he's once again gone into a race and beaten anything that we thought could beat him. It's just disappointing to lose out on these Group 1s in this kind of manner, because you don't get second chances in these situations, and I'd argue that he should have been the winner on that day.

I've reflected on it a lot, and there's no getting away from it; the more you think about it, the more you realise it's another Group 1 that you've let get away from you. But it is what it is, and I'm going to have to deal with that. 

I thought the race developed nicely, but coming to the line, obviously I got it wrong. Ultimately, though, I wasn't the only who to get it wrong. When asked, I just felt happy and open enough to tell everyone my thought process, that's all it was. 

You know, we don't go out there without the benefit of hindsight; we're not clairvoyants, we have plans. They're great when they work out and they make us look like bloody geniuses. But this is the beauty of horse racing, I suppose... who's to know, at the end of the day?

Richard [Hannon] said to me after the race "it's coming". From my point of view, where I'm sitting, it should have happened by now. You know, he was extremely unlucky to get beat by the flare of a nostril in a very weirdly run Queen Anne, in the fact tHat we went so slow.

And then, on the other side of it, to come back around and get beat again, by a short margin, in another race that was run in a strange, tactical and tricky way... 

I'd always upgrade his losses, in a sense, because throughout his career I don't think he's ever run in a straightforward race; he's done extremely well to pick up what he has up to this point.

I think he's proven that he's exceptional. I really do. He got beat by a gelding in Qirat, so I'm going to disregard him and take the race without the winner, and look at all of the horses that finished behind him. You know, he completely put to bed what was a very strong field, with Field Of Gold, Henri Matisse and Docklands, who beat him last time... look what he did to him on the next occasion.

It's just one of those... it's frustrating, obviously. But if you're looking at it optimistically, which I have to, there's no doubt that we've got a very good horse in Rosallion.

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