Charm Spirit completed a wonderful spell for the Head family with a brave victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot on Saturday.
A fortnight ago, Criquette Head-Maarek's filly Treve became a very rare dual winner of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and her brother, Freddy, was able to show off his considerable capabilities as a trainer in this QIPCO British Champions Day Group 1, worth more than $1 million.
Admire Rakti won the biggest race of his career in Saturday’s $2,634,000 Caulfield Cup in Australia and immediately vaulted to the top of future-book lists for the Melbourne Cup on Nov. 4.
A 6-year-old Japanese-bred, Admire Rakti (10-1) closed from the middle of a field of 18 to take the lead from longtime leader Rising Romance in the final sixteenth of the race over 1 1/2 miles on turf. Lucia Valentina, the 3-1 favorite, finished third, beaten a length.
Madame Chiang, who struggled against top-class company in the English Oaks and Prix Vermeille in France in recent starts, had no difficulty with the heavy ground at Ascot Racecourse in England on Saturday, scoring an upset win in the $880,000 QIPCO British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes.
Second or third in his last four starts, and previously a winner only once this year, the 7-year-old Gordon Lord Byron broke through with a powerful, brave victory in the Group 2 QIPCO British Champions Sprint on Saturday at Ascot in England.
Trapped behind horses for much of the six-furlong trip, Gordon Lord Byron and jockey Wayne Lordan found a sliver of an opening with a half-furlong left to race. Neither jockey nor horse hesitated, and once through the narrow opening, Gordon Lord Byron fled the scene, bursting home a clear winner over Tropics and Jack Dexter.
All the Grade 1 favorites fizzled on Future Champions Day at Newmarket, with Ivawood’s second-place finish in the Middle Park Stakes the top showing from any of the best-fancied 2-year-olds in action Friday.
Ivawood, an odds-on favorite, dropped a close photo to 22-1 outsider Charming Thought in the Middle Park. Favored Estidkhaar made little impression in the Dewhurst Stakes, checking in fourth as Belardo scored an impressive victory, and in the Fillies Mile, race favorite Lucida checked in fifth as Together Forever won by a half-length.
Kingman, retired last month before completing his 3-year-old campaign, was expected to be the star of the QIPCO Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Saturday at Ascot, and in his absence, the QE II could showcase the only horse ever to beat Kingman, Night of Thunder.
Night of Thunder handed Kingman a neck loss in the English 2000 Guineas this past spring, and he can follow in the footsteps of his stablemate Olympic Glory by winning the QE II, the last major one-mile race of the European season.
The damage is done. Days of rain have left Ascot Racecourse with soft to heavy conditions in advance of Saturday’s QIPCO British Champions Day.
That could play in the favor of surface specialists for the day’s two seven-figure Group 1 races – the Champions Stakes and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes – and three other Group 1 or Group 2 races on the program.
Since Richard Hannon Jr. operates the leading 2-year-old outfit in England, it should come as no surprise that his stable is well represented Friday at Newmarket on Future Champions Day, the juvenile appetizer to Saturday’s QIPCO Champions Day at Ascot.
Hannon trains Ivawood, the favorite for the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes, and Estidhkaar, the favorite for the Group 1 Dewhurst. He also has a second horse, Kool Kompany, for the Middle Park and the filly Marsh Hawk in the Group 1 Fillies Mile.
Freddy Head’s name has been associated with great milers throughout his decorated career as both jockey and trainer, and the Frenchman is hoping to shine with yet another specialist at the eight-furlong distance this weekend.
With a proven record on soft ground, the Head-trained Charm Spirit has been popular with horseplayers this week ahead of Saturday’s Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, part of the lucrative QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot.
This is the season, Breeders’ Cup time, when European horses and their human connections begin traveling across the Atlantic to the United States. Through the summer and fall, even before the Breeders’ Cup, a west-flowing pipeline, funneling European runners to lucrative stakes in North America, stays open, but that pipeline tends to flow in just one direction. The number of Europeans racing in North America dwarfs that of North Americans venturing east across the Atlantic to race.
