Lys Gracieux won her second consecutive Group 1 or Grade 1 race in as many countries with a strong rally in Saturday’s $3.4 million Cox Plate at Moonee Valley Racecourse in Australia.
Sent off favored, Lys Gracieux (3-2) closed from off the pace to take the lead in the final sixteenth, pulling clear to win by 1 1/2 lengths over 15-2 Castelvecchio, a 3-year-old having his first start against older horses.
The Class 2 Kwangtung Handicap Cup, headed by top-rated Elusive State, is the featured race on an all-dirt program Sunday at Sha Tin Racecourse in Hong Kong.
The 1,650-meter Kwangtung is the fourth of nine races over what the Hong Kong Jockey Club officially terms Sha Tin’s all-weather track but is actually a sand-based dirt course.
Alson and Armory, second and third in the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere on the undercard of the Prix de l’Arc de Tromphe on Oct. 6, are part of a four-horse field in Sunday’s $276,975 Criterium International at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris, the final Group 1 of the year for 2-year-olds in Europe.
The Group 1 Vertem Futurity on Saturday at Doncaster in England is going to look a lot like an Aidan O’Brien team workout.
The Ireland-based master trainer has five of the six entrants in the one-mile race for 2-year-olds formerly called the Racing Post Trophy. O’Brien runs heavily favored Mogul, second-choice Innisfree, as well as Louisiana, Iberia, and Royal County Down. Andrew Balding-trained Kameko, second by a neck to Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf-bound Royal Dornoch in the Royal Lodge Stakes, is the only entrant from outside the O’Brien yard.
Brett Davis – Selections
R1 – 3-1-8-10
R2 – 1-10-5-2
R3 – 3-9-1-10
R4 – 9-1-2-3
R5 – 3-6-1-2
R6 – 3-1-5-4
R7 – 9-6-2-10
R8 – 5-2-3-1
R9 – 1-9-3-7
Best – R4 n9 Playa Del Puente
Longshot – R2 n1 Super Fun
Best Play – R1 Q/Qp 1,3,8,10
Andrew Le Jeune:
R1: 3-1-5-2
R2: 4-6-10-8
R3: 9-10-6-1
R4: 2-9-5-1
R5: 8-3-4-7
R6: 1-3-4-2
R7: 2-6-10-1
R8: 5-1-3-10
R9: 1-3-9-6
Not Usual Talent finished the 2018-19 Hong Kong season with consecutive wins in handicap races at Sha Tin and Happy Valley racecourses, victories that have propelled the New Zealand-bred gelding to a more prominent role on that circuit.
Wednesday, Not Usual Talent will have his first start of the 2019-20 season in the 267,744 Green Luck Handicap at about a mile and 50 yards at Happy Valley.
Of course, the expectation was that the Group 2, $514,875 Oriental Watch Sha Tin Trophy on Sunday in Hong Kong would go off like clockwork. Beauty Generation was in the race and on the face of things the Hong Kong champion would win the Oriental Watch – because Beauty Generation never loses. But this time, the mechanism was fouled, the gears didn’t quite click, and both Rise High, who won by a neck, and Waikuku handed Beauty Generation his first loss in 10 starts dating back to April 2018.
Yes Yes Yes posted a minor upset Saturday in Austalia in the Group 1, $9.56 million Everest Stakes, holding off Santa Ana Lane to win the 1,200-meter dash by a half-length at Randwick Racecourse.
Trekking finished third, while Redzel, winner of the first two editions of the Everest, was a pace casualty and faded to eighth. The top three home all came from well back, with Yes Yes Yes and jockey Glen Boss getting first run on Santa Ana Lane, who surged in the very late stages but fell short of the winner.
