Even at this early stage of the season, we can be forgiven for mentally fast-forwarding to the first weekend of June at Epsom. It is after all the best weekend of the year, featuring the best race of the year.
There are plans afoot in Newmarket – plans being mooted by the Jockey Club, no less – to dig up one of the best turf gallops on the Heath to install a new all-weather racecourse and training facility. At a time when there's concern as to having enough horses to fill races in the over-stuffed fixture lift–one which is already heavily reliant on all-weather fixtures–it seems a rather tone deaf approach from an operation whose raison d'être is supposedly the preservation of horseracing and all its glorious heritage.
Since attending a presentation of the Jockey Club's plans in Newmarket last week, and while watching our small string of horses skip over that perfect turf gallop in question on a beautiful spring morning a few days later, my thoughts have turned to how to oppose this idea. Lying in front of a bulldozer may be taking it a bit too far but considering the vast expanse of the Heath avoided being wrecked during World War II to provide food while the island was under siege, it would be a great sadness to see a chunk of it lost all these years later, even if it is for a racing-related scheme.
I feel the same chest-tightening dismay whenever I read a column suggesting that the Derby should be shortened in distance. Why? Having horses run a mile and a half is no hardship. In fact, it's a mere sprint compared to the four-mile heats of yore. It is of course progress that has brought us to the current Classic distances but we must beware any further limiting of the programme in the name of so-called progress. Where will it end? It seems reasonable to assume that it ends with the loss of one of the most absorbing elements of racing in this part of the world, which is the diverse nature of the Flat tests, for sprinters through to stayers and everything in between.
That should remain reflected in the range of stallions available to breeders, as it currently is. While being fully cognisant of the reasons behind commercial breeders' desire to breed for the market in which they wish to participate, a look at the range of yearlings buyers in Europe in recent years offer plenty of cause for hope that not everyone is looking for an early, fast horse. Add to that the fact that of the world's 22 top-rated races last year, only one was a sprint (Australia's TJ Smith S.) and one more was run at a mile (Ascot's Queen Elizabeth S.). The remainder were 10- to 12-furlong races, and breeding horses capable of getting that sort of trip should surely therefore continue to be the primary aim.
The rise of Galileo (Ire) as a supersire has, up to a point, helped to prop up the Derby in recent years, and as his influence wanes, in the first generation at least, it is heartening to see other Derby winners coming to the fore. In fact, the current top three in the betting for this year – Luxembourg (Ire), Reach For The Moon (GB) and Point Lonsdale (Ire) – are sons of the Derby winners Camelot (GB), Sea The Stars (Ire) and Australia (GB) respectively. Reason enough, surely, to give due credence to the horses good enough to pass the unique test of this special race when they end up at stud.
The Ascent Of Piz Badile
Bar some notes from recent stable visits, most of this year's Classic contenders remain firmly under wraps and in barracks. One to have shown his hand over the weekend is Piz Badile (Ire) (Ulysses {Ire}), who rallied tenaciously to hold off Buckaroo (Ire) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}) in a battle between the O'Brien brothers to win the G3 Ballysax S. The race has been won 11 times by their father Aidan with such great names as Galileo himself, High Chaparral (Ire), Yeats (Ire), and Fame And Glory (GB).
Joseph O'Brien landed the 2017 running of the Balllysax with future Melbourne Cup winner Rekindling (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}), but this year it was Donnacha's turn, with the Niarchos family's regally-bred Piz Badile, who became the first stakes winner for his sire Ulysses, a son of two Epsom stars in Galileo and the Oaks winner Light Shift (Kingmambo).
We looked at this family recently in a feature on Ulysses and his close relation Cloth Of Stars (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), who has his first juvenile runners this season. Piz Badile, who takes his name from a mountain in the Swiss Alps, has a double dose of these illustrious genes, being inbred to Lingerie (GB), by another Derby winner in Shirley Heights (GB), and whose G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup-winning daughter Shiva (Jpn) (Hector Protector) in turn produced Piz Badile's dam, the Listed winner and Group 2-placed That Which Is Not (Elusive Quality).
Enable's Family To The Fore
Andre Fabre could have an embarrassment of riches in the 3-year-old fillies' division this year with the G1 Prix Marcel Boussac winner Zellie (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}), Sea The Sky (Ger) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), and the promising Raclette (GB) (Frankel {GB}) among his Classic hopes. This group also extends to Agave (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}), one of three winners for the trainer at Saint-Cloud on Saturday when extending her unbeaten run to three in the G3 Prix Penelope.
Like Raclette, Agave is a Juddmonte homebred, emanating from a family which has brought the operation much success in recent seasons via its most celebrated member, Enable (GB). Agave's dam Contribution (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}) is Enable's half-sister and broke her maiden over 1m7f at Maisons-Laffitte as a 3-year-old as well as finishing third in the G2 Prix de Pomone.
With such stamina hints on her page, and having already won the Listed Prix Rose de Mai over 2,000m last month, it was no surprise to hear that Agave may go straight to the G1 Prix Saint-Alary at the end of May. A nomination for the Oaks, which closes on Tuesday, would also not be out of place.
Both group races on Saint-Cloud's Saturday card fell to the offspring of Dubawi, with the extremely likeable The Revenant (GB) adding yet another win to his tally, which now stands at 12 from his 19 starts, as well as five placed finishes.
There could hardly be a more consistent horse in training, particularly when he gets his favoured soft ground. The 7-year-old's victory in the G3 Prix Edmond Blanc was his sixth group win, that sextet including the G1 Queen Elizabeth S. of 2020.
Sly And The Family Rock
It is 16 years since Pam Sly notched the biggest success of her career when saddling Speciosa (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) to win the 1000 Guineas. The Classic heroine, who was retained as a broodmare, has been a stalwart for the Sly family and continues to give the stable plenty of cause for cheer.
Sly has had just two runners on the turf this season, and not only are they both winners, but Dark Spec (GB) (Dark Angel {Ire}) and Astral Beau (GB) (Brazen Beau {Aus}) scored with 40 minutes of each other at Leicester on Friday and are a son and grand-daughter of Speciosa respectively.
Dark Spec, now seven, must have tried the patience of his trainer, who bred and races him in partnership with her son Michael and Dr Tom Davies. Having made four starts as a 2-year-old, he was then off the track for almost four years until resuming last summer. Persistence has paid off, and he won at Pontefract on his final start of last season and again on his resumption at Leicester off a mark of 77. While he was sent off favourite on Friday, his 3-year-old 'niece' Astral Beau was one of the outsiders of the field at 50/1 for her debut in the seven-furlong novice event, but posted a professional performance to hint at plenty more to come. Her dam Asteroidea (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) was Speciosa's third foal and won over a mile and a half.
With the stable in such form, it is worth keeping an eye on the progress of Eileendover (GB) (Canford Cliffs {Ire}), another of Speciosa's grand-daughters who is a Listed bumper winner and has also won over 1m6f on the Flat. The late-maturing 5-year-old is entered in Wednesday's Listed Further Flight S. and though she will face only four rivals, one of them is Alan King's dual Group 1 winner Trueshan (Fr) (Planteur {Ire}).
Juveniles On The March
Trainer Michael O'Callaghan already has Royal Ascot ambitions for his first 2-year-old winner of the season, Crispy Cat (GB), who became the first runner from the second crop of Ardad (Ire). The Overbury Stud sire was himself a winner at the Royal meeting and provided last year's G2 Norfolk S. (and subsequent dual Group 1 winner) Perfect Power (Ire).
Crispy Cat was the subject of one of the feelgood stories of last year's yearling sales, having been bought for 7,500gns by policeman Leon Carrick and nurse Michelle Gibbons while they were lying in bed watching the the foal sales online during the pandemic. The couple brought him back to Newmarket 10 months later when Ardad's first runners had made a decent impression and the colt was resold for £105,000 to Amo Racing. Proceeds from the sale have been used to fund midwifery training for Gibbons.
The question which will loom large through the next few months is which of the freshman sires will follow Ardad's example with some sharp first-crop winners. Several Coolmore sires are already in the hunt, with Sioux Nation having been represented by the winner of the first juvenile contest of the Irish turf season in Ocean Quest (Ire), one of his three runners to date.
On Sunday at Le Lion d'Angers, Saxon Warrior (Jpn) followed suit with his first runner and winner, the smartly bred Ser Sed (Ire), who is out of a Frankel (GB) half-sister to Lope De Vega (Ire).
US Navy Flag was unlucky not to join his stud-mates in having a winner on the board when the Clive Cox-trained Kaasib (Ire) found trouble in running at Windsor on Monday but kept on gamely to take second. That same afternoon, Redcar's juvenile race went the way of Star Of Lady M (GB), from the first crop of Whitsbury Manor Stud resident Havana Grey (GB) and trained by David O'Meara.
Lemaire Takes Pride To Kentucky
“If I could choose one race, I would choose, of course, the Kentucky Derby because it's such an iconic race and the atmosphere is incredible, and the race itself with 20 runners is very unusual in America,” Christophe Lemaire told the website Japan Forward in April 2021.
Twelve months later, and the French-born multiple champion jockey in Japan appears to be on the cusp of being granted this wish. Lemaire has been given the nod to partner the G2 UAE Derby winner Crown Pride (Jpn) (Reach The Crown {Jpn}) in the 'Run for the Roses' on May 7, replacing Australian hoop Damian Lane, who was in the saddle for the colt's win at Meydan.
Lemaire did not go empty-handed on Dubai World Cup night, however, as he partnered Stay Foolish (Jpn) (Stay Gold {Jpn}) to victory in the G2 Dubai Gold Cup, having a month earlier ridden four winners on the Saudi Cup card.
With Lemaire having already won Classics in France, Britain and Japan, not to mention landing Australia's Melbourne Cup with Dunaden (Fr), the logical next challenge for the five-time Japanese champion is to conquer America.
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We have a new top lot 
strike twice?