The Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes has been won by some outstanding fillies in the past and although this year’s winner was impressive she has a considerable task ahead of her if she is to reach the heights of the one who won it 12 months before.
In 2016, the Wesley Ward-trained Lady Aurelia put up one of the most impressive performances of the year when running away with the five-furlong juvenile feature, taking the prize by seven lengths. She then added the Group 1 Prix Morny at Deauville and returned to Ascot yesterday for a dominant win in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes. Today it was the turn of Heartache and she showed plenty of potential when beating Happy Like A Fool by two and a half lengths. She is trained by Clive Cox, she was bred by Whitsbury Manor Stud, and she is a daughter of the sprint star and notably successful Cheveley Park Stud stallion Kyllachy (by Pivotal).
His 29 stakes winners include the Group 1 sprint stars Krypton Factor, Sole Power, and Twilight Son – the latter a popular new addition to the Cheveley Park stallion team this year. They also include the Group 1-placed Group 2 winner and promising young sire Dragon Pulse, the Group 2-winning miler Penitent, and the talented Stepper Point.
That gelding has won both the Group 2 Sapphire Stakes and Group 3 Flying Five Stakes at the Curragh, plus listed races at Beverley, Lingfield, and Longchamp, and he has been runner-up to the aforementioned Sole Power in both the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes and Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes. His highest end-of-year Timeform rating has been 123, earned in 2014. What makes him particularly interesting here is that his winning dam, Sacre Coeur (by Compton Place), could be described as being a three-parts sister to Place In My Heart (by Compton Place), the pattern-placed and stakes-winning dam of Heartache. A half-sister to the Group 3 Tetrarch Stakes winner and Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas fourth Leitrim House (by Cadeaux Genereux), Place In My Heart – who won the Listed Lansdown Stakes and finished third in the Group 3 Prix de Saint-Georges – is out of Lonely Heart (by Midyan), who is a stakes-placed half-sister to Sacre Coeur. Stepper Point is now eight years old, the most recent of his 10 wins came over the minimum trip at Chelmsford at the start of this month, and his siblings include Gulland Rock (by Exceed And Excel), a six-year-old whose victories have come from five to seven furlongs, the most recent one coming at Kempton in March. Lonely Heart and Sacre Coeur are half-sisters to the 10-time scorer Ace Of Hearts (by Magic Ring). Place In My Heart’s siblings include Indian Trail (by Indian Ridge), whose nine wins feature two heritage handicaps – one of which was the Investec Dash at Epsom – and also Golden Heart (by Salse), a one-time scorer whose daughter Bella De Zio (by One Cool Cat) was a stakes-placed six-time winner in Italy. These are the highlights of the first three generations of the pedigree, and it is worth mentioning that Take Heart (by Electric) – the third dam of Heartache – is a four-time winning half-sister to a pair that won 13 races between them, because this is a female line that throws up a lot of prolific winners, in addition to its blacktype horses. Heartache’s only race prior to Ascot was in a novice event at Bath in late May, which she won by six lengths, and there is every reason to hope that she can add plenty more to her record – wins and blacktype – before she eventually goes to the paddocks. There is also more than enough in her pedigree to suggest that six furlongs will be within her compass and that could make her a candidate for the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup at next year’s Royal Ascot festival.
The first juvenile pattern race of the season produced a blanket finish, which was a bit disappointing, even though the winner broke the juvenile course record. Colts who take the Group 2 Coventry Stakes typically get immediate ante-post quotes for the following year’s 2000 Guineas - this one was chalked up at 20/1 - but Rajasinghe could be a high-class sprinter instead of a classic prospect.
A first winner at the Royal Ascot festival for trainer Richard Spencer, the late-March foal was bred by James and Geoff Mulcahy. He made €65,000 in Goffs as a foal, was sold-on for £85,000 in Doncaster as a yearling, and his only race before today was on the Tapeta surface at Newcastle a month ago, also over six furlongs. He beat Indomeneo by four lengths that day, and that colt took the seven-furlong maiden at Wetherby yesterday, but four lengths covered the first nine home at Ascot. Headway, who is a first-crop son of Cheveley Park Stud stallion Lethal Force, was the runner-up, beaten by a head, with Murillo a neck back in third and listed scorer Brother Bear another neck behind in fourth.
Rajasinghe comes from the final Irish crop of international sprint star Choisir (by Danehill Dancer), the Coolmore horse whose Group/Grade 1-winning progeny include Obviously, Olympic Glory, Starspangledbanner, and The Last Lion.
He is the ninth foal out of Bunditten (by Soviet Star), who was third in the Listed National Stakes at Sandown as a juvenile, and his string of winning siblings includes Kurland (by Kheleyf). She earned her blacktype when third in the Listed Roses Stakes over five furlongs at York and she missed out on pattern placing when fourth to Acapulco in the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes two months before. Felicita (by Catrail), the grandam of Rajasinghe, was also a speedy juvenile, her three wins in France at that age included a pair of listed contests, and she was placed in the Group 3 Prix Eclipse. Her siblings include the stakes-placed Anemone Garden (by Dancing Dissident) and also Erreur (by Desert King), the one-time scorer whose progeny includes the six-furlong listed scorer Hillbilly Boy (by Haafhd), a prolific winner from six furlongs to a mile. The next dam, Abergwrle (by Absalom), was unplaced in two starts, both at two, which was a disappointing for the daughter of a classic star. That was Caergwrle (by Crepello) who won the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket in 1968. That chestnut produced only four winners from 11 foals, including the stakes-placed prolific winner St Ninian (by Ardross) and Group 3 Molecomb Stakes runner-up Claerwen (by Habat), and the latter did her part by becoming the dam of the speedy but tragically ill-fated Grade 2-placed dual US Grade 3 scorer Bravely Bold (by Danzig). Caergwrle was also the dam of Cricceith (by Brigadier Gerard), who was placed once as a four-year-old from just a handful of starts, and what makes that filly significant is that she became the dam of the Group 1-placed dual Group 2 winner Batavian (by Straussbrook) and the grandam of listed race winner and Group 1 Auckland Cup third Castle Heights (by Golan), both of which were born in New Zealand. Rajasinghe is the son of a top-class sprinter who stayed a mile and he is the great-great-grandson of a 1000 Guineas heroine, but the trend in the most recent generations of his family is for sprinting speed and it is that which suggests he may be more of a Commonwealth Cup, Prix Maurice de Gheest and/or Prix de la Foret candidate than a potential Guineas contender in 2018. |
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