Day two of York’s Ebor meeting and the Darley Yorkshire Oaks is the highlight, a mile-and-a-half fillies’ Group One.
We had the winner last year in Pleascach, but she’s been retired as a broodmare now and twelve go to post to claim her title.
Aiden O’Brien is having a particularly good season even by his own standards and saddles three of his best fillies in Found, Seventh Heaven and Even Song, as well as the lesser-fancied Pretty Perfect.
Found, the 2/1 favourite, is the obvious place to start and there are enough doubts about her being 100% to take her on after a mid-season break.
She’s run five times already this season and only won once, but three were in Group One company and she placed second in all of them.
Last season she won the Breeders’ Cup Turf from Golden Horn, who was the second-highest rated horse in the world last year, so her best is exceptionally good but I’m not so sure we’ll see it today given bigger autumn targets are on the agenda.
SEVENTH HEAVEN looks the bet from the trio after springing a surprise in landing the Irish Oaks over this trip at Curragh last month, winning with plenty in hand from the same horse that placed second in the English Oaks at Epsom.
She has the classic profile of an O’Brien-trained improver, and that run looks like strong form so, at 4/1, she might be better value than Found.
Even Song was a short price for that race and finished 17 lengths behind in seventh and connections have urged us to put a line through the race as it was too bad a performance to be true.
Previously she had beaten Queen’s Trust in the Ribbesdale Stakes at Royal Ascot, looking really good in doing so, but it’s a real gamble to bank on an improved performance, though the booking of Irish ace jockey Pat Smullen is definitely a plus.
At 14/1 she’s potentially value considering she went off odds-on for the Irish Oaks and was very highly thought of at the time – but the suspicion is that she wants some cut in the ground and the horse that placed second in the Ribbesdale, Ajman Princess, finished last in the Irish Oaks so has cast major doubt over the form.
Queen’s Trust herself ran a really nice race behind Minding in the Group One Nassau Stakes at Goodwood, proving her class at this level and her ability to handle fast ground.
She’s been well supported for this but I’m not so keen at the current price of 6/1.
Finally Godolphin’s ENDLESS TIME is the trickiest to assess given how lightly raced she’s been.
The daughter of Sea The Stars has had just the one start this season and it was a Group Two win at Haydock, though it was hardly impressive.
It did come on soft ground though, which would have posed a real stamina test after such a long absence, so the winning distances were never going to be big.
With plenty of good-ground form in the book there’s reason to believe she’ll improve on York’s sounder surface and she’s been laid out for this race by her trainer Charlie Appleby so has to have a big chance.
8/1 is therefore quite a tempting price and I’m backing two in the race.
1pt win Seventh Heaven @4/1, 15:40 York, Thursday
1pt win Endless Time @8/1, 15:40 York, Thursday