Minding won her third Group 1 race in the last two months with an easy victory in Sunday’s $279,375 Pretty Polly Stakes for fillies and mares at The Curragh in Ireland.
Sent off at 1-5 in a field of five, Minding caught pacesetter Bocca Baciata, a 25-1 shot, in the final furlong and won by 4 1/2 lengths. Bocca Baciata held second in the race at 1 1/4 miles on turf, finishing five lengths clear of 14-1 Lucida.
Minding, the winner of the Group 1 English Oaks on June 2, will be a heavy favorite to win her third Group 1 race of 2016 in Sunday’s $279,375 Pretty Polly Stakes for fillies and mares at The Curragh in Ireland.
Trained by Aidan O’Brien, Minding won the Group 1 English 1000 Guineas at Newmarket on May 1 before finishing second by a head in the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas at The Curragh on May 22. In the English Oaks at 1 1/2 miles, Minding won by 1 3/4 lengths as the 10-11 favorite in the longest start of her eight-race career.
Harzand will try to win his second derby of the year Saturday at The Curragh in the Group 1 Irish Derby.
Harzand rallied from midpack June 4 to score a game win in the Epsom Derby, a start he nearly missed after painfully dislodging a shoe while traveling to the race from trainer Dermot Weld’s base in Ireland. Weld said this week that Harzand wasn’t a certain starter Saturday while coming back just two weeks after his win at Epsom, but he was among the nine runners declared Thursday for the race.
Norm Casse was ready for a nap at midmorning Monday, his internal clock still off a tick after spending close to two weeks in England. But the horse with whom he traveled overseas, Tepin, has shown no such lingering malaise after a memorable win June 14 in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot.
“I’ve been tired the two days since I got back, but the days I was there after the race, she didn’t seem tired at all,” said Casse, assistant to his father, trainer Mark Casse. “I don’t know what to tell you – she’s pretty special.”
International titan Galileo once again asserted his dominance at Royal Ascot, recording five winners at the meeting, led by Order of St George in the Group 1 Gold Cup in Honor of the Queen’s 90th Birthday.
Galileo also took the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes with Kinema, the Queen's Vase with Sword Fighter, the Chesham Stakes with Churchill, and the Wolferton with Sir Isaac Newton. He is also the broodmare sire of Group 1 St. James’s Palace winner Galileo Gold and Hardwicke Stakes winner Dartmouth.
Twilight Son won the second Group 1 race of his career and gave jockey Ryan Moore his third stakes win on the card Saturday with a narrow victory in the $861,720 Diamond Jubilee Stakes on the fifth and final day of the Royal Ascot meeting.
Twilight Son (7-2) won the six-furlong race by a neck over 7-1 Gold Fun, who finished a nose in front of 25-1 Signs of Blessing. Magical Memory, the 3-1 favorite, finished fourth in the field of nine, beaten a half-length.
The filly Quiet Reflection won her fifth consecutive sprint stakes and her first Group 1 in Friday’s $567,800 Commonwealth Cup for 3-year-olds at Royal Ascot in England. The victory gave trainer Karl Burke hopes of starting Quiet Reflection in Group 1 sprints against older horses in England in September and October.
It was, for all intents and purposes, Aidan O’Brien Day on Thursday at Ascot, where O’Brien landed his 50th career winner at the Royal meeting with Even Song in the Group 2 Ribblesdale and captured the featured Gold Cup for the seventh time with the highly impressive Order of St George.
The Gold Cup, a Group 1 worth about $322,000, is contested over 2 1/2 miles, which is three-quarters of a mile farther than Order of St George ever had raced. The field was much larger than usual, 17 runners, yet Order of St George still was odds-on to come out on top – and for good reason.
Quiet Reflection, a winner of four consecutive sprint stakes in England and France, will be favored to win the first Group 1 race of her career in Friday’s $567,800 Commonwealth Cup for 3-year-olds at Royal Ascot in England.
The Commonwealth Cup, run at six furlongs, drew a field of 12 but does not include Acapulco, the American-based runner who was withdrawn because of soft turf conditions at Ascot this week.
A Shin Hikari, the heavy favorite for the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes on Wednesday at Royal Ascot, proved a major disappointment, but Lady Aurelia most certainly did not in the Queen Mary Stakes.
The Wesley Ward-trained 2-year-old filly turned in what must have been one of the more memorable performances in the modern history of Royal Ascot, winning the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes by seven lengths. That huge margin came in a race just five furlongs long, and Lady Aurelia stunned her rivals with a devastating turn of foot to accompany dominant speed.
