With Enable away, Magical will play in Tattersalls Gold Cup

Enable races Saturday in England, Magical on Sunday in Ireland, and that is good news for Magical.

Five times Magical has faced Enable, and five times Magical has lost to Enable, but with Enable as the favorite in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Magical has a chance to shine Sunday at The Curragh in the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup.

Magical, trained by Aidan O’Brien and with Wayne Lordan named to ride, is one of just six entrants in the 1 1/4-mile contest, and she’s odds-on to handle a modest bunch of rivals. Magical won the 2019 Tattersalls Gold Cup by five lengths, and she’s got an excellent record at The Curragh of 5-2-0 from seven career starts.

Twice – in the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Turf, and last summer in the Eclipse Stakes – Magical has come within three-quarters of a length of Enable, and while there’s no doubt who is the better racemare, Magical, in her own right, has compiled an incredible career. Now 5, the daughter of Galileo and Halfway to Heaven has 10 wins and six second-place finishes from her 22-race career, and her handy victory June 28 in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes suggests she’s just as good this season as she was last year or as a 3-year-old of 2018.

Buckhurst, a Group 3 winner who makes his Group 1 debut Sunday, was the second choice at about 8-1 with British bookmakers as of Friday. Buckhurst comfortably beat Sir Dragonet, a 15-1 shot for O’Brien in the Tattersalls Gold Cup, when they met last month in the Alleged Stakes, a 1 1/4-mile race at The Curragh.

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Barney Roy in Germany

Godolphin and trainer Charlie Appleby have shipped Barney Roy to Germany for the Group 1 Grosser Dallmayr-Preis Bayerisches Zuchtrennen on Sunday at Munich.

Barney Roy, who came back to racing in 2019 after proving infertile at stud, had a strong winter in Dubai, where he scored two sharp wins and would’ve been among the favorites in the Group 1 Dubai Turf, which was canceled because of coronavirus.

Barney Roy finished third at Royal Ascot in the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes, beaten five lengths by victorious Lord North, and will try Sunday to win his first European Group 1 since the St. James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2017.