Ground might not suit top echelon in Yorkshire Oaks
Two-time Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Enable won the Yorkshire Oaks in 2017 and 2019, while ill-fated but top-class Sea of Class took down the 2018 renewal. Alipinista won the race in 2022 on the way to Arc glory. This year’s renewal of the Group 1 fixture comes Thursday at York Racecourse in England, and there is nothing approaching the level of any of those horses entered in the 1 1/2-mile race.
The Yorkshire Oaks, which is open to older fillies and mares aged 3 and up, drew a field of 10, and half those horses were between 9-2 and 13-2 in antepost betting as of Wednesday. The race is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series offering the winner automatic fees-paid entry into the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf plus travel expenses to Santa Anita.
The York course midweek was a Santa Anita-esque good to firm, which might not suit Savethelastdance, who won the Group 1 Irish Oaks over soft ground in her most recent race, has won her last three starts on soft going, but finished second as the odds-on favorite in the Oaks at Epsom, which was contested over good-to-firm turf.
Four-year-old Al Husn has gotten very good this year, defeating Nashwa on the all-weather surface at Newcastle before landing her first Group 1 Aug. 3 in the Nassau at Goodwood. But the Nassau was run over a very soft course and Al Husn is unproven over a distance this long.
Bluestocking got within a half-length of Savethelastdance in the Irish Oaks but in the Group 2 Ribblesdale over 1 1/2 miles at Royal Ascot, where the going was good to firm, she was soundly beaten by Warm Heart. Warm Heart, Savethelastdance’s Aidan O’Brien-trained stablemate, was just fifth in the Irish Oaks but is one of the more interesting chances in the Yorkshire Oaks.
And do not ignore the team of jockey Frankie Dettori and co-trainers John and Thady Gosden, who have 5-year-old Free Wind for Thursday’s race. Free Wind was at sea last out over heavy ground at Goodwood and ran below expectations finishing fifth of seventh in the Hardwicke at Royal Ascot, but she’s a good-ground kind of mare and in May was a Group 2 winner over a 1 5/16-mile trip short of her best racing at York.
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