Aidan O’Brien’s domination of the British Flat season has continued with the master trainer saddling three of three of the first four home in the Yorkshire Oaks led by Seventh Heaven.
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O’Brien wasn’t taking any chances in her absence, fielding four runners in the 12-strong line-up including the Breeders’ Cup Turf victor Found, who started as the 2/1 favourite for the 2400-metre feature.
Stablemate Found (2/1 favourite), who was expected to need the run on her return from an absence, travelled well for a long way and came through for second, ahead of Queen’s Trust who confirmed her runner-up spot behind Minding in the Nassau was no fluke.
“The lads will decide what they want to do, but she’s a lot of options”.
Seventh Heaven was no match for Minding in the Epsom Oaks, in which she finished a distant sixth, but she quickly rebounded to score an upset in the Group 1 Irish Oaks and was well backed Thursday while getting a hefty 10-pound break in the weights, 123 to 133, from Found as a 3-year-old facing older foes. She’s a lovely traveller and a massive, rangy filly who handles fast ground very well.
O’Brien seemed doubtful about Seventh Heaven as a possible contender for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe as she prefers good ground, and she is top-priced at 11-2 with Hills for the Fillies and Mares Stakes at Ascot on Champions Day, though that meeting also tends to be run with some cut in the ground.
The decision paid dividends as her four-length victory there saw her promoted to favouritism for next year’s 1000 Guineas, and she looks as though she still has plenty of progress still to come.
Of Found, the trainer added: “She was just ready to start, but she’d an very bad lot of class and we knew that”. She got a little bit exhausted and then Seamus looked after her.
He added: “The plan with her was to go to the Curragh for the Royal Whip on Sunday, but we came here as we have US Army Ranger for that, and then go to Leopardstown for the Irish Champion Stakes and then go to the Arc so nothing might change from that”.
“The lads will see the horses run at the weekend and the pattern should become apparent after that”.
Chris Richardson, for owners Cheveley Park Stud, said of Queen’s Trust: “It was no disgrace to finish third to those two fillies – a Classic victor and a Breeders’ Cup victor”.
Charlie Appleby blamed the ground for Endless Time’s disappointing effort. “You know that you’re probably going to get good ground in America, you’d like to have one eye on it and see what you do in between”.
Postponed then held her off with the minimum of fuss in the Coronation Cup before My Dream Boat just outbattled her to win by a neck in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.
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He said: “It was the ground”.
