The German filly Danedream’s first longshot victory in a major European race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe last fall, came in a romp, but her second, on Saturday at Ascot in the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, came down to a head bob, with Danedream beating the race’s gallant 2011 winner Nathaniel by a nose.
Great Heavens and Princess Highway, 3-year-old fillies who have won their last three starts, are the top contenders in Sunday’s Group 1 Irish Oaks at the Curragh.
Great Heavens could be the latest raiding success in Ireland for British trainer John Gosden. Earlier this month, he won the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes in Ireland with Izzi Top.
Great Heavens, by Galileo, won her group stakes debut in the Group 2 Lancashire Oaks at Haydock Park in England on July 7. The Irish Oaks will be her first start outside of England.
Mayson, a 20-1 outsider, took advantage of a rain-soaked course to win his first Group 1 race in Saturday’s July Cup at Newmarket, England.
The race did not live up to full expectations. Bated Breath, the 2011 July Cup runner-up and the future-book favorite for this year’s race, was scratched early Saturday because of track conditions. His absence, and the withdrawal of two others, left a field of 12 in Britain’s biggest sprint of the month.
The French filly Giofra scored a 10-1 upset in Friday’s Group 1 Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket, England, recording her second major stakes win of the year.
Ridden by Christophe Soumillon, Giofra caught 25-1 Elusive Kate in the final furlong and won the one-mile race by a half-length. Siyouma, a 33-1 outsider and another French invader, finished third in the field of 10 fillies and mares.
Elusive Kate, a Group 1 winner in 2011 as a 2-year-old, made her first start of 2012 in the Falmouth.
Red Cadeaux, the winner of the Group 2 Yorkshire Cup in May, will be favored to win his fourth stakes in Thursday’s Group 2 Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket, the first day of the three-day July meeting.
There are Group 1 stakes on Friday (the Falmouth Stakes) and Saturday (July Cup) at Newmarket.
A 6-year-old gelding trained by Ed Dunlop, Red Cadeaux has lost his last two starts, finishing second in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Epsom on June 2 and third in the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot on June 23.
Nathaniel made a triumphant return to the races Saturday at Sandown, holding off Farhh to capture the Group 1 Eclipse Stakes in his first start since last Oct. 15.
Nathaniel, a Galileo colt owned by Lady Rothschild and Newell Park Stud, ranked among the better European 3-year-olds of 2011, his most important win coming in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot last July. And given his stout performance Saturday, he might well turn out to be among the better older horses in 2012.
So You Think was to have started heavily favored Saturday in the Group 1 Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park in England, but he was reported lame Thursday, and word of his impending absence from the Eclipse soon gave way to a report of So You Think’s retirement. So You Think will immediately go into quarantine and soon be shipped to Australia to stand the 2012 breeding season there, announced his connections, trainer Aidan O’Brien and an ownership group headed by the Coolmore operation.