Alice to spring on Smart Call
TALENTED: ALICE SPRINGS, PERSUASIVE RATED AMONG THE BEST MILERS IN EUROPE ʂ Limato could prove too good for Harry’s Son.
The likes of Mike de Kock have enabled South Africa to compete with the best nations in the world in the last few years, and Alec Laird hopes to take another step towards global recognition with his brilliant mare Smart Call in the Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket on Saturday.
Smart Call, whose three successes at the top table include the prestigious J&B Met at Kenilworth in January, faces a Herculean task, having to overcome not only a nine months absence from the track, during which time she quarantined in Mauritius, but also arguably the four best milers in Europe in Alice Springs and Persuasive, who were 1-2 in the Matron at Leopardstown three weeks ago, plus French superstars Ervedya and Volta.
Frankie Dettori gave Laird a positive bulletin when he rode Smart Call on the track recently – “she’s a classy filly and that gallop will have knocked off a few of the cobwebs as she’s a bit race-rusty after her enforced break” – but clearly this race is a steppingstone to what the trainer hopes will be the ultimate breakthrough for South Africa, victory in the Breeders Cup Filly & Mares in California on the first weekend in November.
With Dettori claimed to partner Royal Ascot winner Persuasive for John Gosden, dual South African champion Anthony Delpech is flying in for his firstever ride in Britain on Smart Call, who has been lodging at Newmarket for the last three months and has impressed work-watchers the more she acclimatised.
However, for punting purposes I must stick with ALICE SPRINGS, who is also scheduled for Santa Anita. She was unlucky not to win at Keeneland last year and might have the edge over Persuasive once again.
Like Laird, trainer Paul Lafferty will be happy to nab a place with South African raider Harry’s Son in the Group 1 Prix de la Foret at Chantilly on Sunday.
We will take a proper look at the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on Friday, but as with Smart Call, Harry’s Son is likely to need this race – a good run might well get him an invitation to Hong Kong – having been off the track since getting jarred up in the Dubai Turf at Meydan in March.
Piere Strydom flies in to ride Cape Guineas runner-up Harry’s Son, but the Brits hold both the ace and the king here, with LIMATO just preferred to Dutch Connection.
However, a long absence might not stop SHALAA from belatedly carrying on where he left off when he returns for the Bengough Stakes at Ascot on Saturday. He won four Pattern races last season, including the Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes, but he injured his pelvis in the spring, though while this is a prep for Champions Day, John Gosden thinks “he is fit enough”.
Gosden’s best bet of the week is SO DI MAR in Sunday’s Group 1 Prix de l’Opera at Chantilly. Together with Coolmore’s dual classic winner Minding, she is the best filly in Britain, and though denied a tilt at the Oaks by injury, she made a winning debut at Yarmouth recently and is rated “in the same class as The Fugue and Dar Re Mi” by her trainer.
So bad were the results at Newmarket last Saturday that most punters left the famous Rowley Mile with barely enough money to drown their sorrows over a pint.
The Cheveley Park and Middle Park Stakes, two of the most prestigious juvenile races in the European calendar, were both won by 25-1 chances, and while some sanity was restored when America’s unbeaten superstar Songbird took her winning sequence to 11 in a $1m Group 1 in Philadelphia that evening, we were never going to be able to “get out of jail” on a 30100 favourite.
Watching Songbird gracefully take apart a classy field at the Parx was as beautiful as the Eva Cassidy song after which the filly is named, and, having clocked up seven wins at the top level by a cumulative 60.5 lengths, she must be a banker bet at evens for the Breeders Cup Distaff in Santa Anita on 4 November.
Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer stresses that California “will be no gimme”, with strong opposition in the shape of Beholder and Stellar Wind standing in her way, but veteran jockey Mike Smith, who has been aboard Songbird for all those victories, says justifiably “they have us to beat”, and the filly, who is due to stay in training at four, looks another Zenyatta.
The US can boast a vintage crop of fillies this year from their classic generation, in stark contrast to Britain’s two-year-old scene, where we are struggling to find one of the fairer sex worthy of a place on the catwalk.
The Cheveley Park is generally regarded as THE race for the two-year-old fillies, but with Wes Ward’s ‘American Express’, Lady Aurelia, breaking a blood vessel in finishing third behind the Coolmore pair, Brave Anna and Roly Poly, the long-term 1000 Guineas picture looks about as clear as a Los Angeles smog.
Having appeared “a machine” at Royal Ascot, Lady Aurelia showed she was after all human when she “hit the wall” in the last 100 metres at Newmarket, and Ward, initially “stunned” but ultimately “relieved” when 24 hours later he scoped the filly and found that she had bled, now knows there was a valid reason for this below-par run, and he remains defiant that “we’ll be back at Royal Ascot next summer for the Commonwealth Cup”.
For once, Aidan O’Brien was briefly lost for words to explain a result, which was not dissimilar to Qualify’s 50-1 bombshell for the stable in last year’s Oaks, and the fact that his Cheveley Park pair are offered at 28-1 and 14-1 respectively to become classic heroines next May suggests we did not see two superstars at HQ.
In the same vein, Mark Johnston’s The Last Lion, who kicked off the UK season when winning on day one at Doncaster in March, left us so-called professionals shaking our heads in disbelief when at identical odds to Brave Anna he outgunned Godolphin hotpot Blue Point in the Middle Park, the colts’ equivalent.
Both first and second look ok sprinters to me – no more than that – and, though French-trained Spainburg claimed a few big scalps when winning the Group 3 Rockfel Stakes I won’t be in a hurry to jump on his bandwagon for the 1000 Guineas just yet. Tough filly, but is she a potential classic winner? I doubt it.
We were back to that man O’Brien again on Sunday when he won the Group 2 National Stakes for the 16th time with Capri. He really is as popular in Ireland as Guinness itself!
Indeed, the Beresford became a clean sweep for O’Brien, who also saddled second and third, but though bookies make Capri 12-1 co-favourite with stablemate Churchill for next year’s Derby, I much prefer “Winston”, as they have nicknamed him at Ballydoyle. He looks a shoo-in for the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket on 8 October, but more about that next week.