2020 Eclipse Awards: Audarya

Backing Audarya from late summer to the fall was a very lucrative move for bettors on both sides of the Atlantic.

Along the way, racing fans worldwide watched the rapid development of a filly who ended 2020 with an upset win in the Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Nov. 7 at Keeneland, assuring Audarya a place among the finalists for the Eclipse Award as the season’s outstanding turf female.

A start on the all-weather track at Newcastle Racecourse in northern England on a Sunday in August changed the direction of Audarya’s 2020 campaign.

A 4-year-old filly in 2020, Audarya won a handicap at 1 1/4 miles on the all-weather track at Newcastle in a 12-1 upset. From that performance, trainer James Fanshawe focused on longer races, and began to think ambitiously.

Audarya was the second-longest shot at 47-1 in a field of 12 in the Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet at 1 1/4 miles for fillies and mares on soft turf at Deauville, France, on Aug. 23. She was always near the front and took the lead in the final furlong, holding off the two-time group stakes winner Ambition to win by neck.

Audarya was 15-1 in the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera at 1 1/4 miles on Oct. 4 at Longchamp Racecourse and finished a brave third, beaten a length by Tarnawa, who had won the Group 1 Prix Vermeille at Longchamp the preceding month.

:: Full list of 2020 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories

Fanshawe and owner Alison Swinburn saw enough to plan a trip to Keeneland, where Audarya was one of four foreign-based fillies in a field of 14 in the Filly and Mare Turf.

Ridden for the first time by Pierre-Charles Boudot, the champion French jockey of 2020, Audarya closed from seventh to race within a length of the lead with a furlong remaining. Audarya (17-1) took the lead in the final strides and edged 5-2 favorite Rushing Fall by a neck. Rushing Fall had won two Grade 1 races in the summer, one at Keeneland and one at Saratoga.

Audarya ran 1 3/16 miles in course-record time of 1:52.72.

Audarya was Fanshawe’s first Breeders’ Cup winner in a career that includes two wins in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, England, and in three Group 1 races in England with the female miler Soviet Song.

Fanshawe described Audarya’s win as “the day of a lifetime” to the British racing press. The success of 2020 began with a winning trip to Newcastle.

Fanshawe has said Audarya, a daughter of Wootton Bassett out of Green Bananas bred in France by S.A.R.L. Haras D’Ecouves, will remain in training in 2021. Perhaps a return trip to the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar is a possibility.