Equinties - hot stuff

Gm Equinauts

What are some of the things left to go in this current Flat season?

Glorious Goodwood, the St Leger, Irish Champions Weekend, the Dewhurst, Champions Day, the Arc, and the Breeders’ Cup. That’s a lot to look forward to.

AND WE’RE SEEING TWEETS FOR THE F%CKING JUMPS.

Stop it.

Let’s dive in.

HEADLINE ROUNDUP

LOOKING BRIGHTER

With all the aforementioned beautiful races to look forward to on the flat still, surely, we can’t talk about the 2025/26 Jumps season already, can we?

Where’s Mick McCarthy when you need him?

The National Hunt boys got their first real taste of the J word yesterday as it was revealed on the Nick Luck Daily Podcast that BRIGHTERDAYSAHEAD will go chasing this season.

As much as we would love to treat this as 100% gospel, let’s not forget that Gordon Elliott said this almost a year ago to the day, and yet BRIGHTERDAYSAHEAD remained over hurdles. The great game.

Elliott surely won’t pull the plug for a second year in a row, so we can assume that it is chasing for her this season. Lovely.

We don’t want to get bogged down in Cheltenham targets or anything right now. After all, IT IS LATE-JULY FFS, but this is noteworthy news about a Grade 1 mare who could go on to win more Grade 1s, so it warrants a place here.

We say this, but there is a sneaky worry that by the time Cheltenham rolls around, we could see this mare in the Grade 2 Mares’ Chase. We know, what a horrid scenario that would be. However, she is now 0-2 at Prestbury Park, and connections were stung by not running her in the Mares’ Hurdle this year.

With this in mind, may they just lower their sights in March, pick up an easier Grade 2, and live to fight another day in Grade 1 company? Maybe.

Away from Cheltenham, it was revealed in the Racing Post that Chepstow’s jumps weekend opener will be a three-day meeting this season, as opposed to the current two-day schedule, with the Welsh Champion Hurdle headlining the final day on the Sunday.

Love this move. The ticket prices are set to be super reasonable (£39 for three days), and no one could be bothered to go to Ffos Las anyway, so why not just bring this Welsh Champion Hurdle back to Chepstow and make the weekend a nice Welsh Racing Festival. Top effort, everyone.
 

HOT STUFF

We love when maiden/novice races turn out into red-hot pieces of form.

In a time where trainers try to dip and dive away from each other (mainly over jumps), the one place where they struggle to do this is in a maiden or novice event, for the simple reason that most of the horses in there are either having their debut or their second run of the season.

It’s potential vs potential on the racetrack, real engine tests, and it’s beautiful!

Few maidens in England or Ireland have produced three individual Stakes winners this season, but the six-furlong Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden at Navan on May 17th has.
The race was won by GSTAAD, the Group 2 Coventry Stakes winner, with TRUE LOVE, the Group 2 Queen Mary and Group 2 Railway Stakes winner in second, and HAVANA ANNA, yesterday’s Listed Marwell Stakes winner, in third.

Has anyone got eyes on the second, PADEL ADDICT, for Henry de Bromhead? She hasn’t been seen since, but she is out of a Listed winner, and she stayed on nicely through the line.

Anyway, HAVANA ANNA gave the form a proper boost yesterday by bolting up at Naas, and she could add to a quite intriguing race at York.

Of course, she could go somewhere else after this, maybe even the Group 3 Round Tower Stakes in late August at the Curragh, but she does hold an entry for the Group 2 Lowther Stakes at York at a very similar time.

These are the two obvious potential targets for the Donnacha O’Brien-trained daughter of HAVANA GREY, but why wouldn’t connections send her into a more valuable race at the Ebor Festival?

She has the form, she’s looked very good in her two most-recent starts, and there’s a chance that she could avoid TRUE LOVE if Aidan O’Brien decides to step her up into Group 1 company next.

In this very newsletter, we’ve been pretty vocal about our love for Ed Walker’s ROYAL FIXATION, but we’d have to be pretty blinkered not to see the ability that HAVANA ANNA has.

Adding her into the Lowther mix is a welcome sight, it’s just a shame that ROYAL FIXATION beats her ;)

THOSE BULLISH AUSSIES

Horses rarely come from Down Under with pretty average chances in our big Group 1 races.

Just think of the times they’ve raided Royal Ascot - BLACK CAVIAR, CHOISIR, NATURE STRIP, ASFOORA, and more. They are pretty deadly on these shores, and it tends to be in our sprints as well.

Since Royal Ascot, we’ve spoken about ASFOORA, and the fact she was never really ready for the Group 1 King Charles III Stakes. They weren’t nearly as bullish this year as they were in 2024, and yet she still ran a respectable race.

So, what did Dwyer say the last time he gave us an update? Without trying to rehash it too much, he basically said she had trouble adapting from the single-figure temperatures in Australia (Ballarat, specifically) to the 30-odd degree temperatures over here.

That meant she was a bit flat, and he couldn’t do too much with the horse pre-Ascot.
Still, she ran a mighty fine race considering this, and this has led to connections being pretty bullish ahead of the rest of the season. These quotes are really quite interesting, especially what he says about York.

On ASFOORA, Dwyer said: "We're very confident and hopeful. The market has her as a short favourite and she gets in well at the weights. We got beaten narrowly last year by a horse who was probably superior to what she's going to meet this time – anywhere near that run and she goes close.

"Horses are much better for having had a run there too and that five-furlong start last year really got the better of her last year, going downhill straight away. She was so far back and couldn't get her legs in order out of the gates. If there's any other improvement for having experience there, it's another string to her bow.

“We're not looking at this as a lead-up to York, this race is just as important to us. She's already ticked off her Group 1 box, so every race she wins it doesn't matter what level it is. We'd be chuffed to win this.

"She had less runs in Australia going into this trip and had that real benefit of some rest post-Ascot, so we feel we've got a fresh horse for the second half of the summer and beyond.

"This is only the beginning and if we're putting numbers on it, she's 85 per cent fit coming here and will be near enough 100 per cent for York – but I'd still be disappointed if she doesn't win at Goodwood."

How best is it to read these quotes then? Obviously the final line of “I’d still be disappointed if she doesn’t win at Goodwood” tells a positive story, but the picture around that is fascinating. In as many words, he’s warning punters that ASFOORA is still lacking a little bit of fitness, and yet he’s still expecting a win at Goodwood.

Yes, the trainer knows best, but surely one can’t be true if the other is? She’s either lacking for fitness and will come on for it, or she’s fit enough to win. Weird one.

That would be a small concern regarding Goodwood, but the start of his quotes suggest that the team have campaigned him to win a different selection of Group 1s this season having checked off the King Charles last season.

If not Goodwood, she has to be right at the top of the shortlist for York. Do with that what you will.

STATS OF THE DAY

Todays standout stat is for HAYYNAH in the 15.20. The yard have won this race the last two years and Oisin Murphy has a 50% sr at Sandown when riding for Sangster.

RISK ON

We have a shortlist but we can’t nail one down at the moment. We will tweet our plays.