The Weekly Wrap: Decision Time

[Wandering Eyes]

With most of the posturing now complete and less than two weeks to go to the Investec Oaks and Derby, all that remains is the decision-making.

While hope is still high that the Triple Crown dream will be upheld at Epsom, several horses have impressed within the last fortnight, with the very taking performance of Bernard Kantor’s Young Rascal (Fr) (Intello {Ger}) in the G3 Chester Vase lingering longest in the mind.

It was impossible not to feel that the colt could pose a really credible threat to Saxon Warrior (Jpn) (Deep Impact {JPN}) as one watched him extricate himself from the melee at Chester which, admittedly, is a far cry from the Epsom Downs but every bit as quirky for such an unseasoned horse. He will have learned plenty from his second victory of the season and would be a worthy winner, not just for his owner whose firm has put so much into supporting the Derby meeting over the last decade, but also for the often unheralded Elisabeth Fabre, who bred Young Rascal and also plays such a key role in her husband’s training operation. Andre Fabre has already claimed his own slice of Derby history via the 2011 winner Pour Moi (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}), who went on to sire last year’s victor Wings Of Eagles (Fr).

Victory for Young Rascal would also be beneficial to two studs—Haras du Quesnay and Cheveley Park Stud—which have shared hosting duties for Intello since his retirement in 2014. The G1 Prix du Jockey Club winner is currently back in Newmarket and the day after Young Rascal lines up at Epsom, another of his sons, the Fabrice Chappet-trained Intellogent (Fr), looks likely to bid to emulate his father at Chantilly.

Class In Abundance
While William Haggas really had no decision to make for Young Rascal, the Oaks will be presenting the trainer with a bit more of a conundrum.

The G3 Tattersalls Musidora S. winner Give And Take (GB) was another from the first crop of her young sire Cityscape (GB) to claim a Classic trial after Dan’s Dream (GB). Being out of a full-sister to Irish Derby winner Fame And Glory (GB) and to the dam of 1000 Guineas winner and Oaks runner-up Legatissimo (Ire), her pedigree suggests a mile and a half should be well within her range but her trainer is not convinced, citing the speed she shows in her homework as reason for doubt.

On Saturday, Give And Take’s stablemate Sea Of Class (Ire) built on her encouraging Craven week debut to win the Haras de Bouquetot Fillies’ Trial at Newbury in an eyecatching last-to-first swoop. Crystal Hope (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}), who had beaten Give And Take on their previous outing at Sandown, finished third in the listed contest behind Sea Of Class, laying down a telling form marker, albeit on much faster ground this time around.

Maureen Haggas pointed to inexperience as a major drawback in considering Sea Of Class for the Oaks but the filly certainly looked to have more than enough ability to be deemed worthy of following to Epsom her sire, who won the Derby in 2009 and has already been responsible for an Oaks and a Derby winner in Taghrooda (Ire) and Harzand (Ire).

Though Sea Of Class races in the same silks carried by Sea The Stars and his dam Urban Sea, she was not bred by the Tsui family. Instead she is the product of one of the dominant dynasties of the Italian turf. Bred by the Botti family’s Razza Del Velino, she is out of the Hernando (Ire) mare Holy Moon (Ire) who has already produced two winners of the Oaks d’Italia, Cherry Collect (Ire) (Oratorio {Ire}) and Final Score (Ire) (Dylan Thomas {Ire}). While the former also won the equivalent of the Italian 1,000 Guineas, Final Score went on the win the G1 Premio Longines Lydia Tesio, as did another half-sister, Charity Line (Ire) (Manduro {Ger}).

Maiden No More
There was a yawning green divide between Sun Maiden (GB) and her ten opponents in the Smith & Williamson Fillies’ Novice S. last Thursday as the Juddmonte filly romped home at Salisbury in glorious isolation. As a Frankel (GB) half-sister to six-time Group 1 winner Midday (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}) she’s certainly bred to be very good and she could make only the third start of her life in the Oaks.

Her sire and the most illustrious of her half-siblings overlapped in their time with Sir Henry Cecil, the pair winning the G1 Sussex S. and G1 Nassau S. within days of each other at a particularly Glorious Goodwood for Warren Place back in 2011. Sun Maiden was among the Juddmonte allocation to Sir Michael Stoute whose Freemason Lodge was once home to the young Cecil in the days when his stepfather Captain Cecil Boyd-Rochfort was the stable’s resident trainer and he later started his own training career from there.

Sun Maiden was not the only extremely smartly bred Frankel filly in action last week. After making a winning debut on Apr. 19, Zarkamiya, his daughter out of Zarkava, was in action at Chantilly on Friday but could manage only a fourth-place finish behind Lady Athena (Fr). John Hutchins’s homebred winner will have provided some consolation and a little reflected glory for the team at the Aga Khan Studs as she was conceived there during the two-year stint of her sire Redoute’s Choice (Aus) and she has entries for the G1 Prix Saint-Alary and G1 Prix de Diane.

A listed winner in Italy, Lady Athena’s dam Monblue (GB) (Monsun {Ger}) was bought at Arqana for €400,000 by Damon Gabeddy the year before she was covered by Redoute’s Choice.

The Nays Have It
With four stakes winners last weekend, two apiece in America and Ireland, including the Triple Crown winner-in-waiting Justify, there seems little left to say that hasn’t already been said about the late, great Scat Daddy.

So let’s talk instead about his son No Nay Never. Wesley Ward’s former star recorded his first stakes winner on Sunday when Servalan (Ire) won the listed Fillies’ Sprint S., leading home a one-two for Jessica Harrington with Chicas Amigas (Ire) (Dragon Pulse {Ire}) finishing just over a length behind her stablemate.

Bungle Inthejungle (Ire) is streaking ahead on seven winners but No Nay Never now heads the freshman sires’ table by earnings and is the first among his peers to notch a black-type winner.

Equally impressive at the weekend was his son The Irish Rover (Ire), who has Royal Ascot written all over him following an emphatic win in a Newbury conditions race won in recent seasons by subsequent classy performers Birchwood (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}) and Mehmas (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}).

Roaring Lyons
The parting of ways between Qatar Racing and Ger Lyons was one of the biggest surprises of the week. Sheikh Fahad’s team has had a number of trainers during the course of its existence but none is more readily associated with the operation than Lyons, who provided Pearl Bloodstock, as it once was, with its first winner, Wade Giles (Ire) (Azamour {Ire}), and later first Group 1 winner, Lightening Pearl (Ire) (Marju {Ire}).

Lyons has also trained the latter’s first two foals by Frankel (GB), Lightening Fast (GB) and Lightening Quick (GB), to win two races apiece. Lightening Quick, who was the trainer’s last winner for Qatar Racing when landing the G3 Athasi S. on her seasonal debut on May 7, has now switched to Johnny Murtagh’s stable and could well take on her erstwhile stablemate Who’s Steph (Ire) (Zoffany {Ire}) in the G1 Tattersalls Irish 1,000 Guineas this Sunday.

For Lyons, however, despite the loss of ten horses, it could well be a case of ‘as one door closes, another opens’ when it comes to major owners. Who’s Steph, who has annexed a pair of Group 3 Classic trials on her only two starts this year, was bought privately between those two races by George Strawbridge, who has elected to leave the filly at Lyons’s Glenburnie Stables.

The trainer had a career-best 82 winners last year and is currently in roaring form with eight winners in the last fortnight at a strike-rate of 21%, including three stakes victories. Not bad shape to be in ahead of Ireland’s first Classic weekend of the season.

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