A stellar day for crafty O’Brien

IT WAS a stellar day on Saturday for Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore yielded major Group 1 victories on either side of the Channel as they bagged the July Cup with U S Navy Flag and the Grand Prix de Paris with Kew Gardens.

The Ballydoyle trainer also saddled the third and the fifth in the English race, a stylish and dramatic improvement from what had been a fruitless week for him at the July meeting.

Kew Gardens turned things around, his prospects in the sport having looked modest after last month’s Derby, when he was tailed off after helping set the pace for fancied stablemates.

Royal Ascot

He impressed in the Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot but Saturday’s success at the expense of French-trained Neufbosc was a step up and puts him in contention for Ascot’s King George in a fortnight.

“You couldn’t be happier with him,” O’Brien said.

“Ryan took his time on him and rode him for pace.

“He quickened and was brave at the end.”

Kew Gardens’ odds for the King George have tumbled from 25-1 to 10-1, making him O’Brien’s strongest contender for the midsummer prize.

Five hours before raiding Longchamp, O’Brien had been accepting the trophy at Newmarket.

His fourth July Cup success was achieved by the gritty U S Navy Flag, who turns out to be a speedball despite having been campaigned as a miler so far this year.

The Dewhurst is supposed to be the key race for flagging up the next year’s Guineas prospects and so, having won it in the autumn, US Navy Flag was stepped up to a mile in the spring and tried his luck in the French Guineas, the Irish Guineas and the St James’s Palace Stakes.

A loser five times in a row, the colt came here with a diminishing reputation under suspicion of having failed to train on.

Middle Park

But all he wanted was a 25% cut in the distance of his races and, faced with six furlongs to cover for the first time since he won the Middle Park in September, he made every yard of the running and won tidily.

U S Navy Flag is best understood as a kind of boxer, if you accept the rhetoric from O’Brien and Moore; in a short fight, he has too much power for his opponents, but a longer one lets him punch himself out.

The horse will be given a break before being aimed at Australia’s fantastically valuable Everest Stakes in October.

The richest turf race in the world, it will be worth A$13m (£7.3m) this year and is a natural target for a firm as ambitious as Coolmore, the power behind O’Brien, which has significant bloodstock interests in the country.