Thundering Nights on right side of the scales in Jean Romanet
Thundering Nights gave 12 pounds to the excellent 3-year-old filly Santa Barbara and beat her in the Pretty Polly Stakes on June 27 at The Curragh, and when Thundering Nights tries to win her second straight Group 1 contest, in the Prix Jean Romanet on Sunday at Deauville, she gives weight to no one.
The 1 1/4-mile Romanet is for fillies and mares aged 4 years old and up and all eight intended runners carry 126 pounds. This race (post time 10:25 a.m. Eastern – catch all the action at DRFBets.com) was supposed to include the Aidan O’Brien-trained Love, who instead finished third Wednesday in the Juddmonte International at York after O’Brien’s intended starter there, St Mark’s Basilica, met with a reportedly minor injury.
The Romanet still drew a fine field, the strength of the race coming from England and Ireland. The top French filly is Ebaiyra, most recently second to the steady if unspectacular O’Brien-trained older horse Broome in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris on July 4.
Thundering Nights, trained by Joseph O’Brien, shipped to America in June and just missed running down the Grade 1 performer Mean Mary in the New York Stakes at Belmont. She came back just 23 days later to fend off Santa Barbara back home in the Pretty Polly. Santa Barbara’s eye-catching win Aug. 14 in the Beverly D. at Arlington only enhanced the look of Thundering Nights’s form, and O’Brien, who won the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita with Iridessa, could have designs on that same race this fall at Del Mar.
The Romanet includes the 2020 BC Filly and Mare Turf winner, Audarya, who ran at least as well in her first start this year, a close second behind Love in the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, as she did in any 2020 performance. Audarya, however, returned with a clunker, finishing fifth of six with no apparent excuse in the Nassau Stakes on July 29 at Goodwood.
That race’s winner, Lady Bowthorpe, should have plenty of say in the Romanet. Second to leading European miler Palace Pier going one mile in the J.T. Lockinge Stakes in May, Lady Bowthorpe made her first start beyond one mile in the 1 1/4-mile Nassau and won comfortably.
Cayenne Pepper, third but no match for the top two in the Pretty Polly, could be rounding into top form for trainer Jessica Harrington but might prefer a 1 1/2-mile trip.
Preceding the Romanet is the six-furlong, straight-course Group 1 Prix Morny for 2-year-olds. The top contenders there are the Joseph O’Brien-trained Velocidad, Asymmetric, and Quick Suzy.