There are two ways of looking at Camelot’s loss in the Tattersalls Gold Cup to Al Kazeem, a 5-year-old horse making his Group 1 debut Sunday at The Curragh in Ireland.
Magician validated his dominant victory in the Dee Stakes on May 8 at Chester in England with a similarly convincing win Saturday at The Curragh in the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas.
Epaulette, who won the Group 1 Golden Rose Stakes last September and was second to the famous sprinter Black Caviar last month, won his first major race of 2013 in Saturday’s $630,500 Doomben 10,000 at Doomben Racecourse in Australia.
Grace Lady, a 4-year-old filly by Muhtathir, won the most prestigious race of her career with a 10-1 upset in Friday’s Group 2 Prix Corrida for fillies and mares at Saint-Cloud, France.
Camelot’s 4-year-old debut May 6 in the Group 3 Mooresbridge Stakes didn’t establish him as an elite older horse, and even another victory on Sunday at The Curragh in the Tattersalls Gold Cup might not show where Camelot stands in the grand scheme of European middle-distance racing.
Planteur heads a field of eight older runners in the Prix d’Ispahan, one of two Group 1 races along with the Prix Saint-Alary on the Sunday card at Longchamp in Paris. Trained by Marco Botti, Planteur has only one win in his last nine starts, but has regularly faced some of the stiffest competition in the world, and his connections were well pleased with his third-place finish behind Animal Kingdom on March 30 in the $10 million Dubai World Cup.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien has won four of the last five editions of the Irish 2000 Guineas, and with four of the 10 horses among the final entries for the Group 1 race Saturday at The Curragh, one would think O’Brien stands a decent chance of adding to the streak. But O’Brien’s quartet of Magician, George Vancouver, Gale Force Ten, and Flying the Flag lacks anything approaching a standout performer, and Van Der Neer, raiding from England for trainer Richard Hannon, might stand a better chance than any of the O’Briens.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum has signed a decree making the use of anabolic steroids in racehorses a criminal offense in Dubai, the home of Meydan Racecourse and the Dubai World Cup.
Logotype, the dominant 2- and 3-year-old colt in Japan since last fall, will be favored to win Sunday’s $4,088,050 Japanese Derby over about 1 1/2 miles on turf at Tokyo Racecourse.
With Godolphin rocked this spring by a string of positive steroid tests, a victory by the Jim Bolger-trained Dawn Approach in the Epsom Derby would put the stable back in the headlines for its racing accomplishments.
