Goodwood: Midday wins Nassau for record third time

Midday won the Group 1 Nassau Stakes for a record third time at Goodwood Racecourse in England on Saturday, giving trainer Sir Henry Cecil his eighth win in the race.

Midday won by two lengths over the multiple Group 1 winner Snow Fairy with little urging from jockey Tom Queally in the final sixteenth. Sent off as the 3-2 favorite in the race over 1 1/4 miles, Midday took the lead with a quarter-mile remaining and was in command with a furlong to go.

Snow Fairy, who won the English and Irish Oaks last year, finished 1 1/4 lengths in front of the Cecil-trained Principal Role, a 4-year-old Kentucky-bred filly by Empire Maker.

Midday and Principal Role are owned by Juddmonte Farms.

The Nassau Stakes had a field of six, but was not as strong as anticipated. Misty for Me, the winner of the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes against Midday in June, was scratched on Friday because trainer Aidan O’Brien wanted to avoid ground listed as good to firm.

Midday, a British-bred 5-year-old by Oasis Dream, won the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita on firm ground, the year she won her first Nassau Stakes on soft going. Saturday’s race was her first win in a Group 1 since the Prix Vermeille at Longchamp in France, last September.

A winner of 9 of 20 starts and approximately $3.3 million, Midday has won two of four starts this year, with her first win in the Group 2 Middleton Stakes at York in May. Midday could make her next start at York in the Yorkshire Oaks on Aug. 18.

◗ Former British champion jockey Ryan Moore may miss the rest of the flat season after suffering arm injuries in a spill at Goodwood on Friday, the Racing Post reported.