Churchill strengthened Aidan O’Brien’s hand for next season’s 2,000 Guineas when running out an easy winner of the Group Two Futurity Stakes at The Curragh on Sunday.
The handsome son of Galileo was sent off the 1-4 favourite after his stablemate Capri was declared a non-runner, leaving him with only three rivals to deal with.
Seamie Heffernan, standing in for the injured Ryan Moore, did not have too many worries in providing O’Brien with his third winner of the race in the last four years. Having been pressed by Radio Silence over a furlong out, Churchill ran on takingly to make it three wins from four runs.
The Chesham Stakes winner clearly holds a lofty position in the Ballydoyle pecking order and, with opinion divided on whether Caravaggio will get the mile at Newmarket next spring, the 8-1 about this colt winning the 2,000 Guineas could look very good value by the end of the season.
O’Brien last won this race in 2014 with Gleneagles who went on to win the National Stakes a month later followed by the colts’ first Classic. And that is the likely route for Sunday’s winner.
The Ballydoyle-based trainer said: “Basically he is lazy and never does a lot when he gets to the front but he quickened up well to get there. He will come back here for the [Group One] National Stakes next month.”
Bookmaker reaction to his two-length success was to leave his odds unchanged and he remains second favourite for the mile Classic behind his stablemate Caravaggio, who was a facile winner of the Phoenix Stakes earlier this month.
Later on the card Rhododendron, the 11-8 favourite, successfully made the step up from winning a Goodwood maiden to landing the Group Two Debutante Stakes by a head from her stablemate Hydrangea.
The daughter of Galileo will be back at The Curragh next month for the Moyglare Stud Stakes and is now as short as 10-1 to win the 1,000 Guineas.
It was not all peaches and cream for the Coolmore team as US Army Ranger, the Derby runner-up, ran below market expectations when fourth behind Success Day in the Royal Whip, his first run since Epsom. O’Brien expressed himself “satisfied”, saying the colt got tired after his 68-day absence and that he would be much straighter for the Irish Champion Stakes, his next assignment, at Leopardstown on 10 September.
Churchill was not the only Royal Ascot winner in action on Sunday, as the brilliant Queen Mary Stakes winner, Lady Aurelia, maintained her unbeaten record in the Group One Prix Morny at Deauville.
Wesley Ward, her American-based trainer, has enjoyed great success with the speedy juveniles he ships over to race in Europe each summer but none has made such an impression on the racing public as this brilliant daughter of Scat Daddy.
Frankie Dettori, her jockey, was delighted with how she saw out the sixth furlong [having raced only over five before] and said: “She won by a length but it could have been three.” Ward described Lady Aurelia as a “once-in-a-lifetime filly” and said she would now be aimed at Newmarket’s Cheveley Park Stakes on 24 September.
Freddy Tylicki, the English-based jockey, rode his first Group One winner at Deauville on Sunday when successful aboard Speedy Boarding in the Prix Jean Romanet.
James Fanshawe, who trains the progressive daughter of Shamardal, was winning this prestigious contest for the second time in three years, and he never had too many worries once they entered the final furlong. His filly travelled like the winner a long way out and when Tylicki pressed the button approaching the last 200m she quickly settled the matter, beating Ame Bleue by a length and three quarters.
The Newmarket handler told The Racing Post: “It was great for Freddy, being his first Group One winner. He rode her nicely and got her in a good position. She has always been very talented but she is a big, tall filly who has taken time to come to herself. I think maybe I ran her back a bit quick when she was a little flat in the Pretty Polly in Ireland. She looked like she really stayed on so it will either be the [Prix de l’]Opera or the Fillies’ and Mares at Ascot, but it won’t be both.”
The other big British success on the same card came when Hughie Morrison’s Nearly Caught failed to live up to his name when cruising home a three-length winner of the Group Two Prix Kergorlay. It was his second straight success at the French track but according to his trainer, the more impressive of the two runs.
Morrison said: “He won easier here today. He was the lowest-rated horse, I can’t win with him in England, but he loves going right-handed, on a flat, galloping track.
The East Ilsley-based trainer was asked if he would be coming back to try and complete a quick French hat-trick and he replied: “You have to go for the [Prix du] Cadran don’t you?”
