Gold Ship became the first horse to win two runnings of the $2.7 million Takarazuka Kinen at Hanshin Racecourse in Japan on Sunday, a victory that could lead to a start in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris in October.
This was the second consecutive year that Gold Ship won the Takarazuka Kinen, a race whose field partially is determined by a fan’s vote, similar to an all-star game.
Australia gave trainer Aidan O’Brien his 11th career win in the Irish Derby at The Curragh on Saturday, a race that lacked a competitive feel.
Australia was the 1-8 favorite against four rivals in the $1,687,500 Irish Derby and was not tested, winning by 2 1/2 lengths over stablemate Kingfisher. Another O’Brien-trained runner, Orchesta, finished third, followed by Ponfeigh and Fascinating Rock.
There is Group 1 action in France and Ireland on Sunday, with The Curragh hosting the Pretty Polly Stakes and the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud carded at Saint-Cloud just west of central Paris.
The 1 1/2-mile Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, worth about $567,000, drew seven entrants, including two Juddmonte Farms homebreds, Noble Mission and Flintshire, and two Aga Khan homebreds, Narniyn and Siljan’s Saga. The Juddmonte pair would appear to have the edge.
Australia and Kingston Hill, first and second in the English Derby on June 7, meet for the second time in a month in Saturday’s $1,687,500 Irish Derby at The Curragh.
While the two were separated by only 1 1/4 lengths in the English Derby, there might be little suspense to the Group 1 Irish Derby, run over 1 1/2 miles on turf. As of Thursday, Australia was the 1-3 favorite with Irish bookmakers to give trainer Aidan O’Brien his 11th career win in Ireland’s top race for 3-year-olds. Kingston Hill was listed as a 7-2 shot.
Treve, the 4-year-old French filly rated one of the world’s best runners after a rousing win in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe last fall capped an unbeaten season, won’t race again until September, the racing manager for owner Al Shaqab Racing said this week.
Undefeated going into her 2014 campaign, Treve has lost both her starts this year, finishing a competitive second to Cirrus des Aigles in the Prix Ganay on April 27, but checking in a well-beaten third last Wednesday in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, won impressively by the mare The Fugue.
Slade Power won his first Group 1 race in Saturday’s $894,705 Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot, giving owner Sabena Power and trainer Ed Lynam a sweep of the two Group 1 sprints during the five-day race meeting, which ended on Saturday.
Slade Power, the 7-2 favorite in a field of 14, was one of nine horses who moved to the outer rails shortly after the start of the race, run on a six-furlong straightaway. Ridden by Wayne Lordan, Slade Power was third of that group until the final quarter-mile, when he took the lead.
Azarenka, a 4-year-old Kentucky-bred filly by Street Hero, is part of a field of 12 in Sunday’s $200,000 Clasico Cesar Del Rio at Hipodromo de Monterrico in Peru, a race that offers an automatic berth for the winner to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita this fall through the Breeders’ Cup’s Win and You’re In series.
The Group 3 Clasico Cesar Del Rio is run over 1 1/4 miles on dirt for fillies and mares, and is the first race in Peru to be included in the Win and You’re In series.
The field includes the stakes winner Shakita and Valiant Emilia.
Rizeena rebounded from a disappointing seventh-place finish in the English 1000 Guineas, her 3-year-old debut, to capture the Group 1 Coronation Stakes, the feature on Friday’s Royal Ascot card.
Rosalind, the Ken McPeek-trained American filly in the Coronation, stumbled leaving the starting gate and unseated jockey Kieren Fallon.
Rizeena had a busy 2013 campaign and was one of the best 2-year-old fillies in England or Ireland last year, winning the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes and placing in two other Group 1 races.
Slade Power, the winner of four European group stakes for sprinters in the last year, will be favored to win the first Group 1 race of his career in Saturday’s $894,705 Diamond Jubilee Stakes on the final day of the five-day Royal Ascot meeting in England.
In his first start of 2014, Slade Power won the Group 3 Greenlands Stakes over six furlongs at The Curragh in Ireland on May 24. Last October, Slade Power won the Group 2 British Champions Sprint Stakes at Ascot and was 10th in the Group 1 Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin Racecourse in December.
A 5-year-old Group 1-winning mare with pedigree typically would be settled into life as a broodmare. Not The Fugue, who might have run the race of her life Wednesday at Royal Ascot, beating Magician and the heavily favored Treve in winning the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes by 1 3/4 lengths in course-record time.