Tag: Europe

Harzand’s Caught U Looking On Top At The Curragh

Noel Meade trainee Caught U Looking (Ire) (Harzand {Ire}–Wild Mix {GB}, by Mastercraftsman {Ire}) posted an impressive five-length tally when shedding maiden status at Leopardstown in July and made a smooth transition to black-type company with a landmark success in an attritional renewal of Sunday's G3 Weld Park S. at the Curragh.

The 4-1 chance broke smartly from the outside stall and raced without cover in fifth through the initial fractions of this third start at the seven-furlong trip. Inching closer to the leading duo from halfway, she came under pressure passing the quarter-mile marker and was driven out inside the final furlong to deny Sakti (Ire) (Caravaggio) by a half-length in the dying embers. Long-time leader Brilliant (Ire) (Gleneagles {Ire}) kept on gamely once headed and finished a neck adrift in a close-up third.

“She won easy enough in Leopardstown and there was plenty of interest in her, but Tony O'Callaghan, despite all the horses he has, wasn't for selling,” explained trainer Noel Meaded. “He just wanted to keep her and said to roll the dice and see how she goes. Obviously there is a little bit of pressure on when you do that and [breeder] Peter [Kelly] was happy enough to do that as well. She's a good filly and she's a filly that will improve because she's a Harzand. She's going to be better next year, and probably a mile-and-a-half filly. I know she only just won, but Ger [Lyons] thinks quite a lot of his filly and you are always running against something decent from Ballydoyle. It's hard to win a stakes race in Ireland. Ben [Coen] said she was a little green and leaning away from them in the last furlong-and-a-half. He said she'll come on a ton. With the ground the way it was, it maybe suited her more than the others because of her stamina.”

 

Pedigree Notes
Caught U Looking, half-sister to a weanling colt by Supremacy (Ire), is the first of two foals out of an unraced half-sister to G3 Abernant S. and G3 Supreme S. winner Double Or Bubble (Ire) (Exceed And Excel {Aus}) and G3 Chartwell Fillies' S. victrix Mix And Mingle (Ire) (Exceed And Excel {Aus}). The March-foaled bay's second dam Mango Lady (GB) (Dalakhani {Ire}) is a winning half-sister to MGSW G1 St Leger and G1 Rheinland-Pokal runner-up High Accolade (GB) (Mark Of Esteem {Ire}) and the dual stakes-placed Oasis Knight (Ire) (Oasis Dream {GB}).

Sunday, Curragh, Ireland
WELD PARK S.-G3, €55,000, Curragh, 9-24, 2yo, f, 7fT, 1:30.33, sf.
1–CAUGHT U LOOKING (IRE), 128, f, 2, by Harzand (Ire)
1st Dam: Wild Mix (GB), by Mastercraftsman (Ire)
2nd Dam: Mango Lady (GB), by Dalakhani (Ire)
3rd Dam: Generous Lady (GB), by Generous (Ire)
1ST BLACK-TYPE WIN; 1ST GROUP WIN. (€27,000 Ylg '22 GOAUYR). O-Anthony F O'Callaghan & Sabina Kelly; B-Kelly Equine Services (IRE); T-Noel Meade; J-Ben Coen. €33,000. Lifetime Record: 3-2-0-0, $51,921. Werk Nick Rating: B+. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree, or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Sakti (Ire), 128, f, 2, Caravaggio–Oh Grace (Ire), by Lawman (Fr). (€52,000 Wlg '21 GOFNO1). O-David Spratt, Sean Jones & Mrs Lynne Lyons; B-T Darcy & V McCarthy (IRE); T-Ger Lyons. €11,000.
3–Brilliant (Ire), 128, f, 2, Gleneagles (Ire)–Plying, by Hard Spun. (650,000gns Ylg '22 TATOCT). O-D Smith, Mrs J Magnier, M Tabor & Westerberg; B-Jossestown Farm (IRE); T-Aidan O'Brien. €5,500.
Margins: HF, NK, 2 3/4. Odds: 4.00, 2.25, 7.00.
Also Ran: Dollerina (Ire), Settlement (GB), Content (Ire), Peggy O'Neil (Ire).

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Classic Winners On Course For Arc

The St Leger winner Continuous (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn}) remains on course to attempt an historic follow-up in the G1 Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe next Sunday. The colt, who also won the G2 Great Voltigeur S. on good to firm ground at York en route to his Classic triumph in much softer conditions, would need to be supplemented for the Arc on Wednesday at a cost of €120,000.

Speaking on Sunday afternoon, his trainer Aidan O'Brien told TDN, “The plan is for him to run in the Arc as long as everything remains well with him up to the supplementary stage. He appears to have come out of Doncaster very well and we don't feel that he is ground-dependent.”

Also heading towards Longchamp next weekend is the 2021 Deutsches Derby winner Sisfahan (Fr) (Isfahan {Ger}) following his late scratching from Sunday's G1 Preis von Europa over ground concerns.

Holger Faust, racing manager for Sisfahan's owner Darius Racing, said, “Due to the fact that the ground in Cologne has received more water in the last few days than was previously expected and is now stated as soft, Sisfahan was withdrawn this morning and is now scheduled to race next Sunday in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. In Paris, as of today, the ground, the track and the expected fast pace of the race should suit him.”

Another Classic winner given a positive update ahead of next Sunday's big race is Juddmonte's Westover (GB) (Frankel {GB}), last season's Irish Derby winner, who later finished sixth in the Arc. Successful in this year's Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud before finishing a close second to Hukum (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S., the Ralph Beckett trainee has recently been given a racecourse gallop followed by a trip to the beach.

“Westover went to Salisbury last Friday and to Hayling Island beach this Friday and both exercises went well,” said Beckett.

“It suited him to just take the edge off him ahead of Longchamp and he's shown he can handle any ground between the extremes.”

It is expected to be a largely dry week in Paris, with the long-range forecast showing the possibility of some rain on Saturday morning. 

 

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A Continuous Quest for New Frontiers

The Corinthian quest is finding life tough. These days romance is run off its legs by finance. Victory for Continuous in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, though, 15 days after his St Leger win, would make history of the most reassuring kind.

Each week frontiers in sport are crossed: stats shredded, records set, barriers smashed. With every new 'first' the surviving 'nevers' gain mystique. Racing still has a few. No horse has won the St Leger and the Arc in the same season. It was hard enough already with a three-week gap. This year Continuous could be squeezing it into a fortnight.

Enhancing the intrigue is the knowledge that Continuous's owners are not sentimental strategists. Stirring the public's imagination isn't the first job of an Aidan O'Brien horse in Coolmore colours. If it happens, all well and good. The priorities though are winning, prize-money and stud values.

Yet every now and then we see an illustrious O'Brien Thoroughbred chase something grander than commercial worth. Continuous is on that path. Before him, O'Brien's Camelot was appointed to become the first Triple Crown winner since Nijinsky in 1970. A three-quarter length defeat to the 25-1 shot Encke in the Leger was the resting place for that noble dream.

Avoidance is a modern reflex. In heavyweight boxing risk-aversion has addled the sport's marquee division. Real Madrid can't decline a Clasico fixture with Barcelona. But in racing horses can be confined to comfort zones. Derby winners may be chauffeured off to covering sheds to avert the possibility of defeat.  In National Hunt racing last week the announcement that Constitution Hill would stick to hurdling this season was not well-received by armchair proponents of boldness. Their horse, their choice, is the riposte.

Victory in Paris would add lustre too to the St Leger in an age when the case for stamina as a glamorous attribute feels harder and harder to win

Yet 'the lads,' as O'Brien calls the Coolmore team, are sometimes true to Saul Bellow's line: “A man's life is not a business.”  Their reaction to Camelot's defeat at Doncaster was not to give up on the Triple Crown. Only six months ago it was the target set for Auguste Rodin, who crashed out at stage one, in the 2,000 Guineas, but progressed nevertheless to stardom. 

O'Brien's last four St Leger winners all tried their luck straight away at Longchamp. Kew Gardens (seventh), Capri (17th), Leading Light (12th) and Scorpion (10th) proceeded to Paris. None made it seem a good idea; but Continuous, you sense, would travel to France with more authority and a bigger chance.

“He's a hardy horse and he could back up,” O'Brien said after the seventh St Leger win of his training career. Continuous has speed to go with his stamina and the mark of an autumn horse. He began 2023 underwhelmingly with three defeats but now acts like the boss. Within days of his Doncaster win he had shortened from 12-1 to 8-1 for the Arc.

So, let's line up the historians by Longchamp's winning post? Maybe, but at their own risk of having an idle day. Ballymoss won the 1957 Leger and the 1958 Arc but had a year in between to think about it. The demands of a 1m 6f Classic for three-year-olds are distinct from an all-age European championship over a mile and a half. It's not an obvious progression, especially with the proliferation of big autumn targets, which were less numerous in Nijinsky's time.

By any measure the Arc is a gruelling race to win. And at the end of a hard campaign we enter the realm of the unknowable, unseeable vulnerabilities veiled by form. Eight horses have won the Arc twice but none has scored a treble. When Enable tried, many reasons could be found for thinking her brilliance would carry her. When she failed, it seemed strangely obvious that it was a mission too far. There is a reason why frontiers stay uncrossed. It's because they're beyond equine endurance, even with the best pedigrees, trainers and jockeys to call on, though Nijinsky's pomp was finally ended in 1970 not by fatigue so much as a narrow tactical defeat in the Arc.

O'Brien has harvested English and Irish Classics but could be said to have something of an itch, by his standards, at Longchamp. Most trainers would retire content with two Arc wins (Dylan Thomas in 2007 and Found in 2016). You might have a small bet however on O'Brien being desperate to bring his Arc record closer to his extraordinary tally of English and Irish Classic wins.

A €120,000 supplementary fee four days before the Arc would buy him another ticket to ride, with a Japanese-bred horse by Heart's Cry. And victory in Paris would add lustre too to the St Leger in an age when the case for stamina as a glamorous attribute feels harder and harder to win.

It is the way of modern sport that people talk less these days of “making history,” except as a sardine tossed to the media, or with one eye on the financial rewards. But when racehorses make history, we sure as hell honour it. We remember the trailblazers more keenly – and with gratitude. They answer the heart's cry.

 

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James Horton to Relocate to Newmarket

After parting ways with owner John Dance, conditioner James Horton will return to Newmarket to begin training next term on his own. When leading chaser Bravemansgame (Fr) (Brave Mansonnien {Fr})–co-owned by Dance–was barred from running in the Aintree Grand National meeting early this year, the horse was later allowed to continue his career when Bryan Drew took sole ownership. Dance's other horses, most with Horton, were cleared to run, though under different names, in May but with the announcement Monday of “further concerns coming to light”, another interim stop had been put on the runners.

“In light of the ongoing uncertainty for James Horton and his team, he is to part ways with owners John and Jess Dance in North Yorkshire and relocate to Newmarket to train independently from there next season,” per an issued statement. “He is very grateful for the opportunities which have been given, where he has trained some wonderful horses and looks forward to the future ahead.”

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