THE X FACTOR
Winx & Enable set for Ascot showdown
ROYAL ASCOT bosses are planning “the clash global racing wants to see” – a face-off between superfillies Enable and Winx at the 2018 meeting next June.
Brilliant Australian six-year-old Winx racked up her 21st straight victory when landing the Group 1 Seppelt Turnbull Stakes under jockey Hugh Bowman at Flemington in the early hours of yesterday.
Winx’s trainer Chris Waller is keen to bring his star to Royal Ascot 2018 – with the one-mile Queen Anne Stakes and Prince of Wales’s Stakes over 10 furlongs alternative targets.
The latter race could also be on for Enable, who completed a nap hand of top-level successes when blitzing the Prix de l’arc de Triomphe field at Chantilly last Sunday.
“Hugh Bowman has identified the Queen Anne as the ideal race for her here, and that is the logical place for her to go,” Ascot’s Director of Racing and Communications Nick Smith said yesterday.
“But connections may decide they want to tackle the Prince of Wales’s Stakes over 10 furlongs – and we are actively promoting both races.
“If she were to go to the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, that would open an opportunity for a clash with Enable.
“Enable is a 12-furlong filly on the evidence we have so far, so she’d be stepping out of her comfort zone – but so would Winx (below), as 10 furlongs in Europe could be as far as she wants to go. “It would be ambitious on the part of both horses to take on the challenge, but it would be the greatest clash between the northern and southern hemisphere – and the clash global racing wants to see.” Aidan O’brien equalled his own personal best of 23 Grade or Group 1 wins in a season when Roly Poly captured the Kingdom Of Bahrain Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket.
O’brien, now two short of American legend Bobby Frankel’s alltime record, said: “She’s a great filly with a great heart. She’s tactical and tough – she’s incredibly bred, being out of a very good Galileo mare and by War Front.”