York: Arizona Jewel steps up in stakes attempt

Arizona Jewel, a maiden race winner in her second career start in April, makes her stakes debut in Wednesday’s Group 3 Musidora Stakes at York racecourse in England, a prep for the English Oaks at Epsom Downs on June 4.

Trained by Henry Cecil for Khalid Abdullah, Arizona Jewel, a half-sister to 2005 Arlington Million winner Powerscourt, is listed at 12-1 in the future book for the English Oaks. She rose in stature after winning a maiden race over 1 1/4 miles at Sandown, south of London, on April 24.

The Musidora Stakes, which drew only five 3-year-old fillies, is run over about 1 5/16ths miles. Arizona Jewel will be ridden by Tom Queally.

Arizona Jewel must beat Barefoot Lady, who won the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes at Newmarket last month and was fifth in the English 1000 Guineas on May 1; and Amazing Beauty, a maiden race winner on the all-weather track at Dundalk, Ireland, for trainer Aidan O’Brien last month. The Musidora will be Amazing Beauty’s stakes debut.

On the same program, the Group 2 Duke of York Stakes over a straightaway six furlongs features two Group 1 winners from 2010 – Markab, the winner of the Betfred Sprint Cup at Haydock last September, and Regal Parade, the winner of the Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville, France, last August.

There are eight other 2010 stakes winners and one 2011 stakes winner – Genki (Abernant Stakes, Newmarket) – in the field of 14.