With the leaves on the turn and rugs back on the horses after the hottest summer in many a year, it may feel as though we are coming to the end of the season but by juvenile Group 1 contests in Europe we are really only halfway through.
So far, No Nay Never's sons Little Big Bear (Ire) and Blackbeard (Ire) (No Nay Never), both trained by Aidan O'Brien, have claimed three between them – the Phoenix S., Prix Morny and Middle Park S., while the Joseph O'Brien-trained Al Riffa (Fr) became the first Group 1-winning juvenile colt for Wootton Bassett (GB). Only the two fillies' races have fallen outside the clutches of the O'Brien family, with Tahiyra (Ire) (Siyouni {Fr}) following her talented big sister Tarnawa (Ire) (Shamardal) to Group 1 glory in the Moyglare Stud S. for Dermot Weld, and Ralph Beckett claiming one for Britain in Saturday's Juddmonte Cheveley Park S., in which Lezoo (GB) became a first top-level winner in the northern hemisphere for Zoustar (Aus).
Through the next month we have the seven Group 1 races for two-year-olds which will perhaps have more of a bearing on next year's Classics. On Saturday, Aidan O'Brien was quick to point to Blackbeard being more about the big sprints next year than the Guineas. However, his stable-mate Little Big Bear, who shares his damsire Bering (GB) with Stradivarius (Ire), has more notable stamina influences on his bottom line, not least his sensational Arc-winning great grand-dam All Along (Fr) (Targowice), which may well help his claims in mile contests and perhaps beyond.
Lezoo owns a properly fast pedigree, while Tahiyra can plainly be considered of enormous Classic potential. Al Riffa is by a sire who won the Marcel Boussac and was perhaps found wanting at the mile but has had no problem producing a champion middle-distance three-year-old in Almanzor (Fr). The fact that Al Riffa is out of a Galileo (Ire) mare clearly bolstered his stamina claims, which are enhanced deeper into his pedigree by his extremely classy third dam My Emma (GB) (Marju {Ire}), winner of the Yorkshire Oaks and Prix Vermeille and a half-sister to Gold Cup and St Leger winner Classic Cliche.
With regard to next season's Classics, if that isn't wishing our lives away too quickly, the action of the next month will start to drop some proper hints as to which horses we should be dreaming about over the winter. Isa Salman and Abdullah Al Khalifa's homebred G2 Rockfel S. winner Commissioning (GB) (Kingman {GB}) certainly looks like she will be one of them, and the Gosden trainee could yet return to the Rowley Mile a week on Saturday for the G1 Fillies' Mile or head to the Breeders' Cup in a bid to extend her unbeaten run this season before being wrapped up until spring.
Polly Pott (GB) (Muhaarar {GB}) is an intriguing prospect, having progressed from a handicap mark of 68 to win her last four starts, culminating in the G2 May Hill S. at 40/1 for her retiring trainer. More intriguing still is that she will move to the stable of Ben Pauling at the end of the season when Dunlop hands in his licence. Pauling is better known as a National Hunt trainer but, perhaps spurred by the dual-purpose success of the likes of Alan King and Ian Williams, he has now set his sights on training some Flat horses. Having a team which includes Group 2 winner – who may yet be supplemented to give Dunlop one last hurrah in the G1 Fillies' Mile – is not a bad place to start, especially considering the success of late of Polly Pott's family, which includes the Group 1 winners Accidental Agent (GB) and Mohaather (GB).
Lezoo Delivers on Many Fronts
There were lots of smiling faces as Lezoo returned to the winner's enclosure at Newmarket on Saturday. Jamie McCalmont, who with Kelsey Lupo had bought the filly under the Atlas Bloodstock banner for €110,000 at the Arqana Breeze-up Sale, had also signed up Blackbeard as a foal for Coolmore the previous year for 270,000gns at Tattersalls. The agent clearly had at least two reasons to be cheerful, especially on behalf of his clients and Lezoo's owners Marc Chan and Andrew Rosen. For Chan it was the second Group 1-winning two-year-old in consecutive seasons following the Criterium International success of Angel Bleu (Fr), who is also trained by Ralph Beckett.
Roger O'Callaghan was presumably settling in his draft of Orby yearling at Goffs on Saturday but he could have been permitted a little skip of joy through the sales grounds when first Crypto Force (GB) (Time Test {GB}) won the G2 Beresford S. then Lezoo claimed her success. Both were graduates of the Tally-Ho Stud team of breezers this season, with Crypto Force, who was bred by Andrew Tinkler, having gone though four sales in his two and a half years.
Team Tweenhills was of course delighted with Lezoo's breakthrough win for her sire Zoustar, who had been greeted with a degree of scepticism by the European market despite his success in Australia.
“He's doing exactly what he did in Australia,” exclaimed David Redvers at Newmarket. “I couldn't dream that he would do it to the same extent, but he had a champion two-year-old filly in his first crop there [Sunlight] and he could well do the same here. They are not early, precocious two-year-olds. You get the odd one but as a rule they are autumn two-year-olds, and what we saw in Australia was dramatic improvement from two to three, so that is obviously what we are all looking forward to.”
And most importantly of all, it was great to see the people responsible for the existence of Lezoo, Andrew and Jane Black of Chasemore Farm, on the winner's rostrum to receive their prize as the filly's breeder.
“It's amazing, and if Noble Style hadn't had colic we could have also had the favourite in the very next Group 1 race,” said Andrew Black, speaking to TDN between the Cheveley Park S. and the Middle Park S.
Noble Style (GB) (Kingman {GB}), who is unbeaten this year in three races including the G2 Gimcrack S., was sold by Chasemore Farm ten days before Lezoo, the pair having featured in Books 1 and 3 of the draft respectively at the Tattersalls October Sale.
While Lezoo is out of the Red Clubs (Ire) mare Roger Sez (Ire), Noble Style also has Red Clubs in his pedigree as the sire of his grand-dam Ceiling Kitty (GB), who died in 2016 after foaling her Chesham Stakes-winning son Arthur Kitt (GB) (Camelot {GB}). Noble Style's dam is the Listed winner Eartha Kitt (GB), a daughter of Pivotal (GB).
“The tragedy is that we sold Roger Sez,” Black continued. “Theoretically we kept two [Red Clubs] fillies but then one of the two died and I wish I hadn't sold her because I've left myself light, so there is a little bit of regret that I wouldn't normally have.”
He continued, “I believe in Red Clubs and I believe in his pedigree, but I always felt that the mares that I have by him are a little bit neat. So they are interesting genetically, but I want to layer on top of that to get my broodmares. So the Shamardal daughter of Illaunglas, or the Pivotal daughter of Ceiling Kitty, those to me were just a bit more interesting because you've taken Red Clubs, who tended to get them a bit neat, and then you've put a bit more size into them. So to my thinking anyway you're getting something along the lines of a perfect receptacle – nicely genetically balanced with but of that kind of Red Clubs intensity.”
Roger Sez has in fact been through the December Sale twice in the last two years, sold by Chasemore to Rabbah Bloodstock, who then sold her on to Melchior Bloodstock last winter for 28,000gns.
Hail the Handicap Kings
Though it's the time of the year for black-type races left, right and centre, there's always plenty of interest to be derived from the heritage handicaps, and the Cambridgeshire didn't disappoint in that regard. The four-year-old winner Majestic (Ire) provided the biggest result for his late sire Conduit (Ire) to date, as well as for his owner-breeders Nick and Liz Hitchins.
Unraced until March of this year, having recovered from a fractured pelvis and then being subjected to a wind operation after his debut in a Kempton bumper, Majestic pulled himself together to win on his handicap debut in mid-August off a mark of 79. Having squeaked into the Cambridgeshire on the joint-lowest mark of 86, his bumble-bee silks could be seen weaving their way through the field to land a second major handicap victory for Mick Channon this season after the Lincoln win of Johan (GB) (Zoffany {Ire}) on his first start for the stable in March.
At the Curragh on Sunday the smartly-bred Waterville (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) landed the spoils in the value-boosted €600,000 'Friends of the Curragh' Irish Cesarewitch. Sent off favourite, the half-brother to Irish Oaks winner Sea Of Class (Ire) and the Italian Group 1 winners Final Score (Ire) and Charity Line (Ire), was hardly a surprise victor but it was the manner of his last-gasp neck win over Echoes In Rain (Fr) (Authorized {Ire}) that had onlookers heaping praise on jockey Wayne Lordan. With just six starts to his name, the three-year-old Waterville looks to have a bright future in Cup races next season.
Rebel With a Cause
William Buick can do no wrong this year and, after winning the Cheveley Park S. for Ralph Beckett, he headed over to Cologne for Charlie Appleby to snare his second Group 1 win of the weekend in the Preis von Europa aboard Rebel's Romance (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}).
Following a lacklustre start to the year in Meydan, Godolphin's statuesque four-year-old has really come into his own since returning to Britain, where he won twice as a juvenile. Rebel's Romance is now unbeaten in his four starts since June 25, starting in the Listed Fred Archer Stakes at Newmarket and progressing through the G3 Glorious Stakes and then the Grosser Preis von Berlin, the first of his two consecutive Group 1 wins.
Both stakes races at Cologne on Sunday fell to British trainers, with the Mark and Charlie Johnston-trained juvenile Sirona (Ger) (Soldier Hollow {GB}) taking the Listed Winterkonigin-Trial.
The filly is owned by Jayne McGivern, who recently bought Golden Horn (GB) to stand as a dual-purpose sire at Overbury Stud and who also owns some smart National Hunt mares, including the dam of Constitution Hill (GB) (Blue Bresil {Fr}).
McGivern has joked the she is “going over to the dark side” by rekindling her Flat ownership, and Sirona, who is now two from three in the early stages of her career, looked a smart prospect for next year in her four-length triumph.
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