Minding wrote the opening lines of Aidan O’Brien’s remarkable season on the British turf when she took the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket in May and she provided the sign-off as well with a commanding half-length success in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes here on Saturday, the seventh Group One victory of her 12-race career.
The favourites for the first three races on the Champions Day card had finished out of the frame, including two from the O’Brien stable, but the punters put their faith in Minding and sent her off as the 7-4 favourite ahead of Ribchester, the Prix Jacques le Marois winner, at 7-2.
The money on Minding was as good as banked from a furlong out when Ryan Moore closed on the pace and then moved into the lead, as Ribchester tried, and failed, to do the same. Though the gap between the pair was closing in the final strides, Minding and Moore were always in control.
Minding’s first Group One victory was at The Curragh over seven furlongs in the Moyglare Stud Stakes and she moved up in distance to a mile-and-a-half to win the Oaks in June, so another top-flight victory over a mile, in the most prestigious all-aged race at the trip in Europe, underlined the depth and the range of her talent.
O’Brien now has 21 Group One victories to his name on the Flat this season, plus another in a Grade One at the Cheltenham Festival, and retains a real chance to equal or overtake Bobby Frankel’s record of 25 in a calendar year. He also finished the day as the first trainer to win £8m in a British season, having already been the first to reach £6m and £7m earlier in the year.
“She’s an incredible filly,” O’Brien said. “Her usual work rider got off her recently and said she couldn’t believe the piece of work that Minding had just done. She’s a very special filly.
“She’s won at the top level at a mile, mile-and-a-quarter and a mile‑and‑a‑half and then to bring her down in trip to win an all-aged mile race, they have to be very special.
“I’d imagine that would be it now for her for the rest of the year. The plan was to come here and try and win and maybe the lads will now bring her back to race again next year. They’ll sit down and talk about that now, but hopefully she can race again.”
Minding is the first filly to win the QEII since Milligram in 1987 while for Moore this was, surprisingly, a first success for the high-profile jockey on Champions Day. “She’s had a hard season and to bring her back to a mile is some achievement,” he said. “She was too good for them, too strong. She has lots of pace and masses of talent.”
Ribchester has also run his last race of the season but could yet return as a four-year-old after a solid run into second place.
Lightning Spear ran on well into third having raced away from the pace and on the stands side, which seemed to be unfavoured in the Sprint earlier on the card.
“Hindsight says the far side would have been better but he’s quickened up very, very well and has been beaten by two very good horses,” David Simcock, the trainer of Lightning Spear, said.
“He made up a lot of ground on them and he’ll have his day. I’d love to have him back next year.”
Minding’s victory was particularly welcome for O’Brien, who had already seen two strong favourites soundly beaten earlier on the card.
First it was Order Of St George, the Gold Cup winner at the Royal meeting here back in June, who failed to reproduce the form of his third place in the Arc two weeks ago and finished only fourth behind Sheikhzayedroad in the Long Distance. Then, in the Champion Fillies & Mares’ Stakes, Seventh Heaven could only stay on into fifth behind Journey, the impressive winner, after finding some trouble in running.
Sheikhzayedroad is one of the most durable and consistent horses in training and added another £200,000 to his prize-money earnings with his 11-1 victory. He does have a Group One victory on his record, in the Northern Dancer Stakes at Woodbine in September 2014, but he is essentially a Group Two performer who never runs a bad race and has now picked up nearly £1m in prize money in his career.
“He’s a pleasure to train, because he trains himself,” David Simcock, Sheikhzayedroad’s trainer, said. “He really is a diamond. As he’s got a little bit older, he’s got a little bit slower, but he’s got a massive appetite and that little bit of speed he’s got over this [two-mile] trip helps.”
Journey improved on her second place in the Fillies & Mares’ Stakes last year to claim her first success at Group One level, beating Speedy Boarding, a Group One winner herself at the recent Arc meeting at Chantilly, by four lengths.
“She picked up like she had roller skates,” Frankie Dettori, Journey’s jockey, said. “I can’t believe the turn of foot that she showed today. She deserved a Group One, she has been running so well.”
Tom Queally will never have another afternoon like Champions Day four years ago, when he steered Frankel to a perfect record of 14 wins in his final start in the Champion Stakes. He did manage to record his first win on the card since, however, as The Tin Man finished strongly down the middle of the track to land the Champions Sprint for James Fanshawe.
“I’d probably get more of a buzz out of this than any of the big winners I’ve had, and that includes the Breeders’ Cup [on Midday in 2009],” Queally said. “I was a Group One glutton back then [when Frankel was racing] so I got no kick out of it. Sometimes you need a bit of a drought to make you appreciate things.
“The post-Frankel years have been difficult. But it’s like poker, if you keep going to the table, you’ve got a chance of getting a hand. I was dealt the best hand of all time a few years ago, but I know I am capable of playing a hand if I get it.”
