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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Bloodlines: Serpentine Tightens Galileo’s Grip On European Classics

After the classic results over the weekend in Europe, could any living sire be more emphatically the ruler of his domain than Galileo is in the classics and middle-distance races of Europe?

There is only one answer for that question, and to stamp his footprint firmly into the sands of time, Galileo had his fifth winner of the Derby at Epsom on July 4, as Serpentine tow-roped his field over the gradients and turns of Epsom and met the rising ground of the final furlongs like an old friend.

A splendid winner of a 10-furlong maiden race a week earlier, Serpentine raced through the finish of that race at the Curragh emphatically, nine lengths ahead of his nearest pursuer, and wasn't stopping after 12 furlongs in the Derby, either. Among his connections, particularly trainer Aiden O'Brien, the chestnut colt's stamina was never in doubt, and that was a point of primary difference between Serpentine and his better-known opponents in the Derby.

That, and the enterprising ride the colt received from jockey Emmet McNamara, who took O'Brien's assessment of the situation to heart and repeated the trainer's comments in a post-race interview: “Emmet, this colt could win the Derby. He's an even galloper, he'll probably stay a mile and six; so your best way of trying to win this race for yourself is to pop out and go an even gallop, but be clever about it, try to fill him up at the right points in the race, and get to the winning post and try to time it right.”

McNamara was able to follow those words of wisdom to the letter, and the jockey said that Serpentine “was after doing things in such a nice rhythm, and from the four- to the five-furlong pole, I was able to let him fill himself up, and he did it just beautiful. I let him keep rolling and build a little each furlong. The way he was lengthening, you know, I knew it was going to take a really good horse to get by him. If a horse is weakening, you can sometimes feel it a furlong or furlong and a half out.

“Aiden instilled that confidence in me” to ride the colt so positively for stamina and put the opposition to the test, McNamara said. “Aidan told me when he called to offer me the ride here, 'Emmet, this horse could win the Derby, and he was a hundred percent right.'”

In winning the English classic, Serpentine became the fifth winner of the race for his sire Galileo, who is the all-time leading sire of English Derby winners, and there will be at least four further crops by the great son of Sadler's Wells, even if the 22-year-old Galileo never covered another mare.

In addition to placing their sire alone at the top of sires of English Derby winners, Serpentine and Love made Aiden O'Brien the leading trainer by number of Derby winners and by total English classic victories.

O'Brien has trained eight winners of the Derby, beginning with Galileo in 2001, then High Chaparral (Sadler's Wells) in 2002, Camelot (Montjeu) in 2012, Ruler of the World (Galileo) in 2013, Australia (Galileo) in 2014, Wings of Eagles (Pour Moi) in 2017, and Anthony Van Dyck (Galileo) last year.

Serpentine races for Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Derrick Smith, and the Derby winner was bred by Coolmore in Ireland. He is one of the four English Derby winners by Galileo that various Coolmore partnerships have bred or raced. New Approach is Galileo's only Derby winner not bred and raced by Coolmore and partners; that horse was bred by Lodge Park Stud and won the Derby for Princess Haya of Jordan.

It is also a fact that four of the five Derby winners by Galileo are chestnut: New Approach, Ruler of the World, Australia, and Serpentine. Only Anthony Van Dyck is a bay like his sire. Love is another noble chestnut from Coolmore's classic sire. Galileo inherited a chestnut gene from his dam, Arc de Triomphe winner Urban Sea (Miswaki), and passes that color trait on to half of his progeny, although a smaller percentage show it because chestnut is recessive.

The other chestnut gene that allows Serpentine to display the copper coat comes from his dam Remember When (Danehill Dancer). The chestnut mare did not win a race from six starts, but she finished second in the 2010 English Oaks behind Snow Fairy and was third in the McCalmont Memorial, fourth in the Irish 1,000 Guineas.

So, Remember When was considerably better than an empty stall. When sent to stud, Remember When has proven notably better still. Serpentine is the mare's sixth foal, and five of the six are stakes winners: Group 2 winner Wedding Vow, Group 3 winner Beacon Rock, listed winner Bound, and Group 3 winner Bye Bye Baby, who was also third in the English Oaks behind champion Enable. All of Remember When's foals are by Galileo.

Remember When was, furthermore, a half-sister to Dylan Thomas (Danehill), who won the Irish Derby, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, and Arc de Triomphe; to Cheveley Park Stakes winner Queen's Logic (Grand Lodge); and to 1,000 Guineas winner Homecoming Queen (Holy Roman Emperor).

Their dam was the Diesis mare Lagrion, who failed to win from 14 starts.

This is a family of considerable attainment that tends to improve with maturity and distance. Serpentine adds another mark of distinction, and with two victories from only four starts, he should be able to continue to improve.

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The Weekly Wrap: Love Abounds

Before we go any further, let’s just make one thing clear: for all the excitement of Saturday and the fact that the Oaks and the Derby were even able to take place this year, let’s not lose our heads and start to think that they should in future take place on the same day in July. They should not. This is an extraordinary year for one big reason beyond our control and it should remain just that.

Right, where were we? Ah, Epsom.

I’ll go to my grave failing to understand why all the world doesn’t love horseracing. For a so-called ‘magnificent triviality’ it doesn’t half get the blood pumping, the emotions soaring and the brain churning before and beyond the great races. And we saw two great races on the Epsom Downs on Saturday, one with a result as thrilling as it was expected and the other as thrilling as it was unexpected.

Love (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) really did look like she could spend the season conquering all as she swept down the Epsom helter-skelter in a new race record of 2.34:06, narrowly beating the record of Enable three years earlier. Love sets the standard for what looks an exciting crop of 3-year-old fillies this year.

It took Serpentine (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) roughly a third of a second more to cover the same course and once the shock subsided from his audacious front-running victory it was hard not to view this as anything other than an excellent result. Most of all, of course, for his 30-year-old jockey Emmet McNamara, who, before Saturday had won two group races, both for his boss Aidan O’Brien, and has now added his name to the roll of honour on which all Flat jockeys long to be included.

It could of course be argued that without the delay to the Classic season, Serpentine would not even have run in the Derby. He had won a Curragh maiden just seven days earlier on his third racecourse appearance, three hours before his stable-mate Santiago (Ire) (Authorized {Ire}) landed the Irish Derby. His breeding, however, gives him every right to have been considered a potential Derby winner, with his dam Remember When (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) and her sibling Dylan Thomas (Ire) (Danehill) both having knocked on the door at Epsom.

It’s a topsy-turvy year, and ordinarily we would expect to see the Derby winner next in the Irish Derby or, even better for those of a more commercial mindset, the Eclipse, lest he be filed instantly under the ‘future National Hunt sire’ label. Both of those options are impossible this year but wouldn’t it be something to see Love and Serpentine take on each other, as well as Enable (GB) and possibly Ghaiyyath (Ire), in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. on July 25? What a shot in the arm that would be for a great race which has somehow, inexplicably, lost its lustre of late.

Together Alone
An initial thought as Serpentine flashed by the famous winning post more than five lengths ahead of the chasing pack was ‘what more can be said about those over-achievers Aidan O’Brien and Galileo?’ Appropriately, it was Galileo himself who first caused O’Brien’s name to be etched on the list alongside a Derby winner. From the 19 horses to have won the race since then, another seven have been trained by him, while Galileo has now featured as the sire of five Derby winners (and grandsire of one). Together and alone, they are record-breakers in myriad ways and we are fortunate to be alive to witness what will forever be regarded as a significant chapter in the history of racing and breeding.

A new chapter was started the following day at Chantilly when the former Aidan O’Brien trainee Fancy Blue (Ire) became the first Classic winner for her new trainer and Aidan’s son Donnacha. Last season the filly had been one of the winners which had helped the 21-year-old secure his second champion jockey title in Ireland before hanging up his boots to join his father and his elder brother Joseph in the training ranks.

There was an echo of another Derby winner in Fancy Blue, who is out of a full-sister to the late and often overlooked High Chaparral (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells), who gave Aidan O’Brien his second Derby victory the year after Galileo. There has been more focus though on the filly’s sire, Deep Impact (Jpn), who can very much be viewed as the Galileo of Japan and who died almost a year ago at only 17. His legacy will also be long-lasting and it is starting to creep into Europe via his Classic-winning stallion sons Saxon Warrior (Jpn)—out of a Group 1-winning daughter of Galileo—and Study Of Man (Fr), a grandson of Miesque.

In fact it was one of Study Of Man’s relations, the fellow Niarchos-bred Alpine Star (Ire), who was so narrowly beaten by Fancy Blue on Sunday in the Prix de Diane after emphatically winning the G1 Coronation S. at Ascot only just over a fortnight earlier. Her sire Sea The Moon (Ger) stands alongside Study Of Man at Lanwades and both should be given serious consideration by breeders with Classic aspirations but without pockets deep enough for Galileo or Dubawi (Ire).

Millennium Marker
While we will look back and view these early decades of the 21st century as the time of Galileo, the horse named to usher in a new era, Dubai Millennium, is remembered through a now flourishing male line which could so easily have withered and died.

Dubawi was of course a member of the first and only crop of the ill-fated Dubai Millennium. The winner of the Irish 2000 Guineas, Dubawi was then represented in his first crop by Makfi (GB), who won the 2000 Guineas. Make Believe (GB), from Makfi’s first crop, reinforced the line and in turn won the Poule d’Essai des Poulains. He now has a first-crop Classic winner of his own in the Prix du Jockey Club hero Mishriff (GB).

Thirty years earlier, Mishriff’s owner-breeder Prince A A Faisal, had enjoyed Classic success at Chantilly with the Prix de Diane winner Rafha (GB) (Kris {GB}), who is the colt’s third dam. His claims to a future stallion career are further enhanced by two of Rafha’s sons, the successful sires Kodiac (GB) (Danehill) and Invincible Spirit (Ire) (Green Desert).

Make Believe, a three-parts-brother to dual Grade I winner Dubawi Heights (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}), raced in Prince Faisal’s colours but had been bought by him as a foal for 180,000gns from his breeder Simon Hope of Aston Mullins Stud. The prince had also purchased Make Believe’s contemporary, rising freshman sire Belardo (Ire) (Lope De Vega {Ire}), as a yearling at Arqana for €100,000 and the pair ended their careers with two Group 1 victories apiece.

Belardo also did his sire a huge favour by becoming his first Group 1 winner in the Dewhurst S., and, though bred by Ballylinch Stud where Lope De Vega stands, he is now at Kildangan Stud after Godolphin bought into him during his racing career.

Make Believe instead stands at Ballylinch, which is now part of a powerful partnership behind the young stallion.

“Prince Faisal kept a third of Make Believe and on occasion in the first few years we have sent half the broodmare band to him,’ says Ted Voute, who manages the prince’s bloodstock at Eydon Hall Farm, the former base of Gerald Leigh’s successful breeding operation.

“He has ten mares and he tends to keep the average age of the broodmare band quite low. Gerald Leigh was the same way, he often sold mares that were 10 or 12.”

Mishriff’s dam, the winning 10-year-old Raven’s Pass mare Contradict (GB), has had a breeding career of highs and lows. Her first three foals are all black-type earners and in the following three seasons she has failed to produce any offspring.

Voute says, “Contradict is now in foal to Frankel (GB) and we have had a bit of bad luck with her because she would get in foal and then reabsorb before 42 days. We are past that stage now this year so we are hopeful but she will hold on to this one.”

Prince Faisal’s good week may not yet be over as he has TDN Rising Star Seventh Kingdom (GB) (Frankel {GB}), another great grandson of Rafha, entered for Saturday’s G2 Superlative S.

“We might be shooting a bit high with him, but you could have said that we were doing that on Sunday also,” Voute adds of the 2-year-old colt. “He’s not a horse that puts in scintillating work so when he won well first time out we were slightly caught off guard.”

While Mishriff and Seventh Kingdom are both homebreds, their breeder has not been averse to racing other people’s stock, as illustrated by Belardo and Make Believe, and he has enjoyed notable success with his select purchases.

Voute explains, “We don’t really have a [buying] strategy. We’d bought [G2 Prix Greffulhe winner] Ocovango (GB) a few years before that and we got lucky with him. Every now and then when the mood takes him, Prince Faisal will say ‘if you’re in Deauville go and have a look at this one’. He’s always going through the catalogues and the photos online and he usually has his own shortlist. In the case of Belardo he had asked me to go to see a Lawman (Fr) and I didn’t like that colt but I told him I had seen a nice Lope De Vega colt, so that’s how we bought him. At the foal sales when he bought Make Believe we’d made a shortlist of ten with Hugo Merry, because when I am selling I don’t like to sell and buy at the same time. The prince came up from London and we showed him the ten and we were beaten on the first two, a Teofilo (Ire) and a New Approach (Ire), both bought by John Ferguson. So then we took all the Darley horses off the list and the only one left was the Makfi and, lo and behold, that was Make Believe. We took him back to Eydon—all the horses are raised there, and Belardo came back there after the yearling sale. Mishriff of course was also there. There’s a very prolific colts’ paddock called Culworth Road East, in which Gerald Leigh had Barathea (Ire) and Markofdistinction (GB), and we’ve kept the tradition of raising our colts in this massive 30-acre field.”

As for Mishriff’s future stud prospects, Voute adds, “It’s a real stallions’ family now. When the prince sold Invincible Spirit and Kodiac he kept very few shares in both of them and I think perhaps he regretted that, so he kept a good bit of Make Believe and he also kept breeding rights in Belardo. I imagine he will now keep a good part of Mishriff when the time comes for him to go to stud and that will help when he hands over to his sons as they will have an operation that can cover its own costs.”

For Ballylinch Stud, the good news did not end with Mishriff this weekend as Lope De Vega, who is enjoying another typically fruitful season, was represented by the G2 Lancashire Oaks winner Manuela De Vega (Ire). Furthermore, the stud’s freshman stallion and fellow French Classic winner New Bay (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) is starting to make his presence felt. Since June 12, he has been represented by four winners and, in a manner reminiscent of last year’s freshman champion and fellow son of Dubawi, Night Of Thunder (Ire), it is his strike-rate at this stage which is the remarkable factor as those winners have come from just seven runners.

In turn, Night Of Thunder has continued his ascent and currently heads the second-crop sires’ list with seven black-type winners including a first Classic winner of his own, the G2 Oaks d’Italia winner Auyantepui (GB). The unbeaten filly was bred by Massimo Parri, head of the Italian TBA and owner of Allevamento Le Gi in Tuscany. Trained until now by Nicolo Simondi, Auyantepui’s recent 50% purchase by Australian-based OTI Racing means that she will transfer to the Chantilly stable of first-season Italian trainer Mario Baratti, a former assistant to Marco Botti and Pascal Bary.

Adaay On The Hunt
Goken (Fr) has been the leader of the European first-season sires’ competition since flagfall, and his first winner, Livachope (Fr), duly became his first group winner last week when extending her unbeaten record to three in the G3 Prix du Bois, leading home her paternal half-sister Axdavali (Fr).

With ten individual winners on the board, the son of Kendargent (Fr) is only one ahead of Whitsbury Manor Stud’s Adaay (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}), who is the sire of Twaasol (GB), winner of the Woodcote S. at Epsom, and Doctor Strange, who took third in Sunday’s G3 Premio Primi Passi.

Kodiac and his half-brother Invincible Spirit account for five of the top 11 stallions in the table, including Prince Of Lir (Ire) and Kodi Bear (Ire) by the former, and Invincible Spirit’s sons Territories (Ire) and Shalaa (Ire).

 

 

 

 

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Serpentine, Love Continue O’Brien’s Dominance Of Oaks, Derby At Epsom

Aidan O'Brien scored his third Group 1 Oaks-Derby double on Saturday at Epsom Downs in the United Kingdom, with Serpentine giving him a record eighth triumph in the Investec Epsom Derby shortly after Love won the Investec Epsom Oaks for the Wizard of Ballydoyle's eighth victory in that classic as well.

Both winners of the mile and one-half British classics campaign for Coolmore partners Michael Tabor, Mrs. John Magnier and Derrick Smith and both were sired by Galileo, who gave O'Brien his first Epsom Derby win in 2001. Serpentine became Galileo's fifth winner of the Epsom Derby.

O'Brien previously won the Oaks and Derby in the same year in 2001 and 2012. This year, because of the coronavirus pandemic,  the races were delayed from their traditional date on the calendar and, in another departure from tradition, run on the same afternoon in front of an empty grandstand.

Love, ridden by Ryan Moore, crushed her seven opponents as the favorite, coming from off the pace to win by nine lengths over O'Brien stablemate Ennistymon (also by Galileo). Frankly Darling, the Group 2 Ribblesdale winner at Royal Ascot on June 16 for John Gosden and Frankie Dettori, finished third.

Love, now five for nine, was coming off a victory in the Group 1 One Thousand Guineas at Newmarket on June 7. The Irish-bred Oaks winner was produced from the Pivotal mare, Pikaboo.

Love winning the Investec Oaks under Ryan Moore

Serpentine, one of six runners for O'Brien in the 16-horse Derby field, was a 25-1 outsider whose only previous win came in a June 27 maiden race at the Curragh in his native Ireland – just one week before the Derby.

Ridden by Emmet McNamara, Serpentine darted straight to the lead in a role some suspected as a pacemaker, then opened an insurmountable advantage that was whittled down to six lengths at the winning post.

Andrew Balding-trained Khalifa Sat finished second, with O'Brien-trained Amhran Na Bhfiann third and co-favorites Kameko and English King finishing fourth and fifth, respectively.

Serpentine was produced from Remember When, a Danehill Dancer mare out of Lagrian, herself the producer of Group 1 winners Dylan Thomas, Queen's Logic and Homecoming Queen.

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