Saffron Beach takes step toward BC Filly and Mare Turf with Prix Rothschild win

It’s only early August but England-based Saffron Beach already has been penciled in as a starter three months from now in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

Tuesday, Saffron Beach traveled to Deauville Racecourse in France and won her third important European race in a row, making all the running and turning back a challenge from the Grade 1-winning filly Tenebrism to win the Prix Rothschild by 2 1/2 lengths. Three-year-old Tenebrism, getting seven pounds from 4-year-old Saffron Beach off a win over males in the Prix Jean Prat at Deauville, got on even terms with Saffron Beach with about a furlong to race, but Saffron Beach, under William Buick, asserted her superiority from that point onward.

Goldikova’s daughter Goldistyle missed second by a head as a longshot. Malavath was an improved fourth and Pearls Galore fifth in this straight-course mile run over good to soft ground.

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Saffron Beach won the Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes last fall in England, was fourth making her 2022 debut in the Group 1 Dubai Turf at Meydan, and returned to Europe to capture the Group 2 Duke of Cambridge at Royal Ascot before Monday’s victory. All her best races have come over one mile, but connections have their sites set on the 1 3/16-mile BC Filly and Mare Turf at Keeneland. Trainer Jane Chapple-Hyam said Saffron Beach would start in the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown or the Sun Chariot at Newmarket in advance of her trip to Kentucky.

Saffron Beach is by New Bay out of Falling Petals by Raven’s Pass.