Love Conquers All In Yorkshire Oaks, Sets Up Clash With Enable In Arc De Triomphe

Derrick Smith, Mrs. John Magnier and Michael Tabor's brilliant filly Love (IRE) crushed her opposition in another outstanding performance to win the Darley Yorkshire Oaks (G1) on Thursday. The victory secures her a guaranteed start in the US$2 million Maker's Mark Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1) through the international Breeders' Cup Challenge Series.

The Breeders' Cup Challenge is a series of stakes races whose winners receive automatic starting positions and fees paid into a corresponding race of the Breeders' Cup World Championships, which is scheduled to be held at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Kentucky, on Nov. 6-7.

Love becomes the third horse to gain a “Win and You're In” berth into the Maker's Mark Filly & Mare Turf this year, joining Queen Supreme (IRE), who won the Cartier Paddock Stakes (G1) at Kenilworth in South Africa on Jan. 11 and Almond Eye (JPN) winner of the Victoria Mile (G1) at Tokyo Racecourse in Japan on May 17.

Dual Classic heroine Love was making her first start since her jaw-dropping 9-length Investec Oaks (G1) win at Epsom Downs in July. Although the winning distance today was only 5 lengths, the race was over as a contest at the furlong marker, and her jockey Ryan Moore eased her home.

The 33/1 outsider Alpinista (GB) stayed on and eventually edged out One Voice (IRE) for the runner-up spot as the John Gosden-trained duo Franconia (GB) and Frankly Darling (GB) never figured.

It was a fifth Darley Yorkshire Oaks win for trainer Aidan O'Brien, who was thrilled with his filly's performance. He said: “I'm delighted. I really couldn't be happier. Everything went perfect and she won very nicely. She was very good last year and being a Galileo (IRE) filly we hoped she'd improve at three and she has done.”

O'Brien has trained some brilliant fillies over the years, including Alexandrova (IRE), Peeping Fawn and Minding (IRE), but believes Love might top that list.

O'Brien said: “I don't think we might have ever had a better filly than her. When you're that close to them, you don't want to be dreaming, but I think she's been extra special all the way through.”

The Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (G1) and then possibly the Maker's Mark Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf is on the agenda for Love. O'Brien said: “If she gets back home well then the Arc would be the plan. If she runs again after the Arc, then it would be the Breeders' Cup.”

It was a second Darley Yorkshire Oaks for Moore who after the race was glowing in his praise for the 3-year-old filly, saying: “She's very special. She's been exceptional this year and has absolutely thrived. She's just got stronger and stronger and has done it very easily today.”

Moore has enjoyed plenty of success over the years at the Breeders' Cup, riding nine winners so far including on Dank (GB) in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf. He continued: “Realistically it was her easiest task for a while. She was running against some unexposed fillies but they had to step up to run to her level. She's a very straightforward filly and it was business as usual.”

Love, a chestnut daughter of Galileo out of the Pivotal (GB) mare Pikaboo (GB), completed the 1 1/2 miles in 2:31.31 over a course listed as good. Bookmakers SkyBet make Love 5/1, from 6/1, for the Maker's Mark Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf.

As a part of the benefits of the Challenge series, the Breeders' Cup will pay the entry fees for Love to start in the Maker's Mark Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf, which will be run at 1 3/16 miles over the Keeneland turf course. Breeders' Cup also will provide a travel allowance of $40,000 for all starters based outside of North America to compete in the World Championships. The Challenge winner must already be nominated to the Breeders' Cup program or it must be nominated by the Championships' pre-entry deadline of Oct. 26 to receive the rewards.

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Coolmore Australia’s Virtual Stallion Parade Features Justify, American Pharoah

With the Southern Hemisphere breeding season kicking off and travel clamped down on a global scale, Coolmore Australia has released an hour-long “virtual stallion parade” to show off its 2020 roster, including Triple Crown-winning shuttle stallions Justify and American Pharoah.

The video series features virtual inspections and walk videos of each stallion, along with interviews with several prominent figures within the Coolmore organization, and surrounding the careers of the individual horses.

The Coolmore staff is represented by some of its highest-ranking members, including John Magnier, M.V. Magnier, David Wachman, and James Bester.

Justify, in particular, got a spotlight during the virtual stallion parade, featuring a conversation with the aforementioned Coolmore staff discussing the 2018 Triple Crown winner, as well as trainer Bob Baffert and Ashford Stud manager Dermot Ryan.

“It's so unusual to win a Triple Crown,” John Magnier said. “People have to realize there's only been 13 of them ever, and this fella is an unbeaten Triple Crown winner. You could be talking about he could be a Northern Dancer or he could be a Sunday Silence. He could be the next big thing.

“The world will get fixed sooner than everybody thinks, and when these Justify-type animals go to the yearling sales down there, the international people are going to be interested in Justifys and things of that nature,” he continued. “The way this game is going, the people that are going to survive, I believe, are the people that have the international outlook.”

For both Justify and American Pharoah, Magnier said their underlying appeal to turf racing made them priorities to add to the stallion roster, even though neither raced on the surface themselves, because that perceived affinity for the grass opens them up to greater international success in parts of the world where turf is the dominant surface, such as Europe and Australia.

“It's probably far more likely that Justify should get grass horses than American Pharoah,” Magnier said. “That was the reason that we just had to have him. He shouted for grass, really, and all of his racing was done on the dirt.”

American Pharoah, the winner of the 2015 Triple Crown, has already proven Coolmore's turf hunch to be true, as the sire of prominent grass runners including 2019 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint winner Four Wheel Drive. However, Magnier was confident the surface success would balance itself out over time.

“It's only a matter of time before American Pharoah will get a good dirt horse,” he said. “He's had some success in Japan.”

Baffert echoed Magnier's sentiment that Justify could have had it in him to compete on the turf, if he had been called on to do so.

“People have always asked me, 'You need to bring a horse to Ascot,'” Baffert said. “Now, that would have been the horse to take to Ascot. I think he would have been just phenomenal. But, the really great ones, they can run on anything…He brought his track with him.”

Noting Justify's imposing physical and penchant for getting to the lead early, Baffert said Justify probably could have succeeded on the opposite side of the surface and distance spectrum, as well.

“I came from the Quarter Horse world, and believe me, he could have won the All American Futurity, a $2-million race,” he said. “He's that quick. He's that versatile that he's quick on his feet and just gets running really fast. I could have trained him to win an 870 [yard] race.”

Justify's first Northern Hemisphere foals are weanlings of 2020, and Ryan said they're already starting to emulate their sire in terms of their physicals.

“They have that big hip, rear end, and good hind leg,” he said. “That big ass-end, strength, that drives him. That's very dominant in nearly all of them, that rear end and muscle behind.”

The full virtual stallion parade video can be found below, but the landing page to break the show out by individual stallions can be found here.

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Record Enshrines Legend Of Galileo

And still the arrow holds its course: that perfect blaze, tapered down from the fletching between his eyes until opening into the neatly pointed tip above his nostrils. His whole life has seemed to obey the inexorable momentum implied in that warpaint. Ever onwards, ever upwards. Sure enough, with perhaps the most telling of all his records secured outright by his daughter Peaceful (Ire) in the G1 Tattersalls Irish 1,000 Guineas on Saturday, Galileo (Ire) maintains his unwavering trajectory even into the evening of his career.

With another spring of undiminished virility behind him, at 22, Galileo could well elevate this latest benchmark–the 85th elite scorer of his stud career–beyond the reach of any future paragon. Even if pensioned tomorrow, Galileo would have four crops still to enter the fray; all, naturally, produced by mares of due eligibility. As such, even a century of Group 1 winners seems perfectly within his embrace.

The breed, then, can already count a relative longevity among the many Galileo assets to which it is indebted. Danehill, with whom he had previously shared the record, died in a paddock accident at 17. And Montjeu (Ire), the son of Sadler’s Wells who contested the succession most ardently with Galileo, was lost through septicaemia complications at 16. Happily, their sire set a more hopeful example, having been retired from stud duty only at 27.

Those names, among very few of the modern era eligible for the same pantheon, all attest to the presiding genius behind Galileo. For Sadler’s Wells, Danehill and Montjeu were three other bastions of the revolution in commercial breeding inspired by John Magnier and his partners at Coolmore.

Magnier’s acumen as a breeder and dealer, of course, has been consecutively complemented by two other horsemen united by a comparable genius, the same surname, and the same stable. His father-in-law Vincent O’Brien was integral to the original transfusion of dynamic American blood into a stagnant European gene pool, most notably through Northern Dancer–sire and grandsire, respectively, of Sadler’s Wells and Danehill. In Ballydoyle’s modern epoch, of course, Peaceful’s trainer Aidan O’Brien has proved no less relentless an achiever.

Posterity, in absorbing the impact on the Stud Book of Sadler’s Wells and then Galileo, will have a convenient brand for the respective O’Brien eras. On the track, admittedly, Sadler’s Wells did not seem to belong to the very first echelon of Ballydoyle champions. Indeed, Jim Bolger remembers getting into the lift at The Curragh after the horse had just won the Irish 2,000 Guineas, finding Vincent O’Brien there, and detecting a hint of bemusement in response to his congratulations.

And it was Bolger himself, of course, who later played a pivotal role in the Galileo story. Quite apart from his contribution as mentor to Aidan O’Brien, Bolger famously bet the bank on Galileo even as the early vibes were so discouraging that his opening fee of €60,000 had been cut to €37,500. When duly coming up with Teofilo (Ire) and New Approach (Ire), moreover, Bolger also sold access to Coolmore’s most precious bloodline to the farm’s habitual antagonists in Dubai. And that, in turn, has opened new branches of the Galileo dynasty–as in the case of 2018 Derby winner Masar (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}).

In fact, we have reached the point where lines through Galileo, Montjeu and Galileo’s half-brother Sea The Stars (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}) have almost saturated the Classic endeavours of elite European operations. Certainly it has become incumbent on Coolmore, with so many of Galileo’s daughters in their paddocks, to renew precisely the kind of overseas experiments that produced Sadler’s Wells and company in the first place. Their search for a viable outcross has, once again, brought benefits for many others in Europe. War Front and Scat Daddy duly made their names as international influences, much like Storm Cat before them; and the early signs are that American Pharoah will transfer his ability to carry dirt speed onto grass.

Others, equally, have been able to share the formula evolved by Coolmore to sharpen Galileo’s genetic preponderance towards stamina. With faster and faster mates, Galileo has increasingly broadened his repertoire to the extent that contributors to this new record include many juveniles, milers and even a Group 1 winner at six furlongs in Clemmie (Ire). In demanding ground, moreover, his son Gustav Klimt (Ire) came within a length of landing an elite sprint for older horses when third in the G1 Haydock Sprint Cup in 2018.

The ultimate dividend from sprinting mares, however, has obviously been Frankel (GB)–whose own spectacular start at stud suggests that Coolmore, having kept the premier heir to Sadler’s Wells inside the corral, may not have managed to repeat that trick. Frankel, of course, is out of a Danehill mare and Juddmonte, to be fair, probably felt that his advent represented a courteous reciprocation after the sale of his damsire, at the end of his racing career, to stand at Coolmore.

This is not the place to debate the substance or otherwise of “crossing” sire-lines. It goes without saying that the Danehill mares sent to Galileo could only have been talented and/or well-bred, and the input of another great stallion should pretty reliably produce plenty of good runners as a result. Whether or not any specific affinity should be implied, it is not hard to accept that a little bit of Danzig pep could logically bring useful equilibrium to the staying power associated with Sadler’s Wells.

Regardless, as things stand 15 of Galileo’s 85 Group 1/Grade I scorers are out of daughters of Danehill. Of the dozen best on official ratings, however, only Frankel represents this supposedly alchemical formula.

There are, of course, manifold other genetic strands entwined in every pedigree. When Magnier bought him, for instance, the appeal of Danehill himself was doubtless heightened by the replication of Natalma on both sides of his pedigree: as third dam, and also as the mother of Danzig’s sire Northern Dancer.

As one of the few mares in the breed’s history to stand comparison with Natalma, Galileo’s dam Urban Sea (Miswaki) must also be staunchly defended against any clumsy inference that he inherited the Sadler’s Wells dominions simply by paternal succession.

For Urban Sea, not Galileo, is the true monarch of Epsom in the 21st Century, having divided her influence there through her other great son Sea The Stars (Ire); not to forget her great-granddaughter Khawlah (Ire), who is by the same sire as Sea The Stars and gave the family another Derby winner a couple of years ago in Masar.

Masar’s luminous distinction, in being inbred 3×4 to Urban Sea, was predictably given less attention than the fact that he carries exactly the same imprint of Ahonoora (GB). By the same token, it surely behooves us to ask whether less familiar genetic strands behind Urban Sea may have contributed to her legacy. The German family is by now well familiar, decorated as it also is by the likes of King’s Best (Kingmambo) and Tamayuz (GB) (Nayef); but even Bolger has professed perplexed curiosity as to the sire of Galileo’s third dam, a forgotten grandson of Tesio’s charismatic Donatello (Ity) named Espresso (GB).

Enough dredging the past; let’s look ahead. Even the greatest empire has its frontiers. Are there still uncharted deserts Galileo can colonise?

Well, of course. Most obviously, his perennial multiple representation in the Derby makes Galileo highly eligible to claim outright the record of four winners he currently shares with Montjeu, as well as Blandford, Cyllene, Waxy and Sir Peter Teazle. And there is unfinished business, also, with his own sire. Sadler’s Wells was champion sire of Britain and Ireland 14 times; Galileo has so far managed 11 titles. As we’ve already said, however, he has plenty of ammunition still to be unloaded.

It is the horse from whom he claimed this latest record, however, who perhaps makes Galileo look to his laurels. Danehill, in addition to his three domestic titles, was champion sire of Australia nine times; and the dynasties he founded there, as a shuttling pioneer, make him one of the breed’s all-time game-changers.

Galileo, notoriously, made less of an impression after five sojourns in the Hunter Valley early in his stud career resulted in three locally-bred Group 1 winners, but a further six imports from the North have thus far brought his tally in Australasia to nine. Nor has he matched the diverse reach of El Prado (Ire), the principal conduit of their sire in America. Though El Prado and his son Kitten’s Joy conform to the Sadler’s Wells profile as unequivocal turf stallions, and Galileo ran that way when rolling the dice on dirt at the Breeders’ Cup, Medaglia d’Oro has parlayed his inheritance onto dirt both as a runner and a sire; and the El Prado line has also diversified to produce sprinters as fast as Astern, Artie Schiller and Bobby’s Kitten.

Frankel, it must be said, had a running style tailor made for dirt. Perhaps his own stock, who have shown a similar tendency to carry speed, may yet be given that chance. (His brother Noble Mission already has a top-class dirt runner in Code Of Honor.) As it is, however, the single deficiency in Galileo’s historic career might be a failure to translate his breed-shaping influence beyond a known, congenial environment. He has not matched the geographical reach of Danehill, nor straddled disciplines like El Prado’s sons.

But these are the imperfections sewn into the Persian carpet, against any presumption of divinity. Galileo has been an impeccable influence, giving a priceless glamour to attributes–stamina, constitution, courage and sheer Classic quality–that were falling perilously out of favour. What that would have meant, without him, is easy to see. Just look at the ostensible “commercial” sector in Europe: it is dominated by precocious sprinting blood, generally without the faintest pretension to breeding a Classic racehorse.

To that extent, Galileo and his clan have actually profited from an increasingly clear run, above all at Epsom, a target in effect renounced by any breeder favouring “commercial” types over stallions eligible to challenge the Derby/Oaks hegemony. The same is largely true even of the mile Classics, but Kitten’s Joy has reminded us all–from severely limited opportunities in Europe–that there are alternatives to defeatism.

As it is, however, let’s celebrate an emperor who remains gloriously in his pomp. For so long as people still breed Thoroughbreds, the legacy of Galileo will be honoured. And whatever else Peaceful goes on to achieve, her name will be preserved in the annals primarily for this latest seal on the prowess of her sire. For Galileo has redefined the very nature of the elite European racehorse–and immeasurably for the better.

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