Japan is planning a concerted assault on many of the world’s best races this fall. The Japanese Racing Association confirmed on Thursday that the country’s best dirt horse, Espoir City, has his sights set on the Breeders’ Cup Classic, while Red Desire, the winner of Round 2 of the Maktoum Challenge against males in Dubai, is headed to the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf.
Canford Cliffs overcame a series of self-imposed difficulties at Goodwood on Wednesday to win the Group 1, $467,000 Sussex Stakes with a perfectly timed late run that caught Rip Van Winkle in the shadow of the line.
Starfish Bay will be the latest American-trained horse to test the depth of the British sprint division when she tackles males at Goodwood on Thursday in the five-furlong, $154,000 King George Stakes. Newly upgraded to Group 2 status this year, the race serves as a prep for the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes at York on Aug. 20.
Canford Cliffs goes in search of his third consecutive Group 1 mile triumph at Goodwood on Wednesday when he squares off against defending title-holder Rip Van Winkle in the $465,000 Sussex Stakes. The winner of the Irish 2000 Guineas and the St. James’s Palace Stakes, Canford Cliffs is Ladbrokes’ 4-6 favorite as he lines up for the fifth time this season.
Ace Spanish trainer Mauricio Delcher-Sanchez scored a memorable victory for his homeland at Maisons-Laffitte on Sunday as Irish Field landed the Group 2, $168,000, Prix Robert Papin for 2-year-olds
Ace Spanish trainer Mauricio Delcher-Sanchez scored a memorable victory for his homeland at Maisons-Laffitte on Sunday as Irish Field landed the Group 2, $168,000, Prix Robert Papin for 2-year-olds. An Irish-bred son of Dubawi, Irish Field rallied to lead under Christophe Soumillon at the three-sixteenths pole and stayed on to defeat Broox by a length and a half.
Lady Jane Digby won herself a virtually all expenses paid trip to Chicago for the Arlington Million on Sunday when she won the $200,000, Group 1 Bayerisches Zuchtrennen at Munich, one of two European races dubbed a “win-and-you’re-in” event into the Million. A 5-year-old mare trained by Mark Johnston, Lady Jane Digby took the measure of eight opponents, seven of them males, in the 1 1/4-mile race, defeating the filly Night Magic by a length.
Harbinger blew them away in the $1.5 million King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on Saturday as he cruised to an incredibly easy 11-length triumph in England’s most important mile-and-a-half weight-for-age race.
Starfish Bay, the Todd Pletcher-trained filly who set a Monmouth Park track record for about 5 1/2 furlongs on June 13, will leave New York on Sunday night for her date in the five-furlong, $152,000 King George Stakes at Goodwood on Thursday. The 4-year-old daughter of Elusive Quality worked four furlongs in 48.88, breezing, on the Belmont training track on Thursday morning in preparation for Goodwood, which lies a few miles outside of Chichester near the south coast of England.
Querari puts his Arlington Million credentials on the line at Munich on Sunday when he seeks a second successive Group 1 triumph in the 1 1/5-mile, $200,000 Bayerisches Zuchtrennen. A 4-year-old son of Oasis Dream, he has been freshened since his May 16 victory in the 1 1/4-mile, Prmeio Presidente della Repubblica at the Capannelle in Rome. Trained by Andreas Wohler, the man who engineered the 2001 Million victory of Silvano, Querari will be ridden, as usual, by Eduardo Pedroza, the Panamanian jockey who has been the champion rider in Germany each of the last three years.
