Joyous July

Newmarket’s summer course had it all - scintillating weather, sumptuous racing and a big priced result to boot, writes Aisling Crowe

ON A GLORIOUS SUMMER’s week at Newmarket, star equines emerged to shine brighter than the sun.

The most unexpected result of the July Meeting was Prosperous Voyage overturning previous form with Inspiral in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes.

However, if form analysts looked hard enough, there were signs that Prosperous Voyage possessed the capability to upset the favourite.

Runner-up to last season’s champion two-year-old in the Fillies’ Mile and May Hill Stakes, Ralph Beckett’s Zoffany filly was inches away from snatching 1,000 Guineas glory on the Rowley Mile in May when second to Cachet, but disappointed when only tenth behind Inspiral in the Coronation Stakes (G1) at Royal Ascot prior to her Newmarket run.

Her trainer saw the common thread linking all her best performances: “I think the key to her really is a straight track.

“Around a bend she scraped home in her maiden at Epsom, but then she got beat at Chester but when she has run on a straight track she has run her race and today she did, too.

“Maybe Inspiral didn’t turn up today, maybe she bounced, but this filly ran her race and that is all that really matters if you are me!”

Fourth on debut over an extended 6f at Doncaster, she showed resilience to get off the mark on her next start and then came that Chester second placing.

After that she was tested in Group 3 company in Goodwood’s Prestige Stakes, in which she met trouble in running but managed to finish third. Then came her two juvenile runs behind Inspiral.

She made her seasonal reappearance in the 1,000 Guineas where she ran on strongly and narrowly failed to overhaul Cachet. She was then due to run in the Group 1 Prix Saint Alary but traffic chaos on the M20 forced the team to abandon their trip to Paris.

“I was saying to Kelsey Lupo, the owners’ [Marc Chan & Andrew Rosen] representative, before the race that it has felt like this filly has run six times this year as she has had so many false starts but it is actually only her third start,” remarked Beckett.

Prosperous Voyage is the fifth individual Group 1 winner for her late sire Zoffany, who died at the age of 13 early last year.

A son of Dansili, he won five of his seven starts at two with the highlight his Group 1 triumph in the Phoenix Stakes. He also won the Group 3 Tyros Stakes and the Listed Golden Fleece Stakes.

Zoffany failed to win at three, but ran Frankel to three-parts of a length when second to him in the St James’s Palace Stakes (G1), and he filled the same position behind Mutual Trust in the Prix Jean Prat (G1).

His fifth Group 1 winner was bred by Paul Shanahan and Tim Hyde through Lynch Bages and Camas Park Stud, who sold her to Grant Pritchard-Gordon of Badgers Bloodstock for £65,000 at the 2020 Goffs Orby Sale which was held in Doncaster.

Her family is one that has provided Juddmonte Farms with enormous success over the last four decades, and stems from the outstanding blue hen Best In Show.

Charlie Gordon-Watson bought her dam Seatone from the Juddmonte draft at the 2011 Tattersalls December Mare Sale.

At the time, she was a winning three-yearold Mizzen Mast half-sister to the Grade 1 Clement L Hirsch Turf Championship and United Nations Handicap winner Senure and the Grade 3 winner Speak In Passing.

Their dam Diese won the Group 3 Prix Corrida and is a Diesis half-sister to European champion two-year-old Xaar and to the Group 3 winner Masterclass.

Diese is also a half-sister to the Listed second Didicoy, dam of Grade 2 winner Didina who is in turn the dam of Cityscape and Bated Breath.

Since then the family has produced Group/Grade 1 winners, including Close Hatches (US Champion) Tacitus, Siskin and Logician.

Seatone herself had foaled the Australian Listed third Romanesque (Montjeu), and her first foal was by far her best until Prosperous Voyage emerged.

Her Swain half-sister Cochin is now the dam of Australian Group 2 and Group 3 winner Permit by Zoffany’s sire Dansili, and the French Group 3-placed Seaport by Dansili’s full-brother Champs Elysees.

Seatone’s Chester House half-sister Five Fields is the dam of Listed winner Upcountry by Oasis Dream and the second dam of Evening Sun, a Muhaarar gelding who won the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile at Santa Anita on the same weekend Prosperous Voyage was second in the Guineas.

Seatone has a two-year-old No Nay Never colt named Tenerife in training at Ballydoyle and he was bought by Peter and Ross Doyle for 450,000gns at Book 2 last year. Her yearling is a filly by Camelot.

Her best offspring will have the opportunity to add further silverware to the family trophy cabinet when she returns to her favoured track.

“The Sun Chariot is the obvious race for her,” outlined Beckett. “We will keep bringing her back to Newmarket. In the Guineas she was drawn in the middle of the track and slightly away from the action.

“We always intended to roll forward in the Guineas and she did. She sat quite close to the pace she wasn’t able to tackle the winner from where she was but she was only beaten a neck that day. It was a good ride today,” Beckett added.

Modern Ideals produces another star

Modern Ideals is fast developing into one of the most important producers in the vast Godolphin broodmare band, despite finishing nearer last than first on her two starts for André Fabre.

Still only a 12-year-old, Modern Ideals, who is from the first crop of New Approach, has produced four winners from her first five runners with three of them successful in stakes company. The trio is headed by this season’s Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner Modern Games, who was also successful in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin. Modern Games was one of a remarkable three Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup winners for his sire Dubawi last November.

Her four-year-old Shamardal gelding Modern News won the Listed Royal Windsor Stakes in May and was subsequently second in the Group 3 Diomed Stakes at Epsom and just a nose behind My Oberon when second in the Listed Midsummer Stakes back at Windsor on his most recent run.

Mawj: another Group winner for broodmare Modern Ideals

The latest black-type performer to be foaled by the half-sister to Ultra, the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère winner and Darley sire, is Mawj.

A two-year-old filly by Exceed And Excel, she made quite the impression when bolting up on her debut in a Newmarket maiden in mid-May. Sent off favourite for Royal Ascot’s Albany Stakes, she found only Meditate too powerful in the finish but was a tough second.

Without that No Nay Never filly to contend with in Newmarket’s Group 2 Duchess Of Cambridge Stakes, she survived a stewards’ inquiry to keep her half-length success over Listed Empress Stakes winner Lezoo, the first black-type winner for Zoustar from his debut Tweenhills-bred crop.

Trainer Charlie Appleby remarked on Mawj’s stature when reflecting on her performance:

“She’s a tiny filly but she obviously has class. When she won here first time out it was off the back of one piece of work because she was light, and she won well.

“She was behind a good filly at Ascot and now winning this is a good result for her. “I hope she grows. Sometimes the fillies change as three-year-olds, but if she grows it would be great. I’ll take her to Dubai to find nice races for her in the winter, but her next target is the Cheveley Park. She will have a break now. Seven furlongs will be better for her at the end of the season.”

As well as Ultra, Mawj’s dam is also a halfsister to the Group 3 Prix Minerve winner Synopsis (In The Wings) and to Epic Similie. She is a daughter of Lomitas, who was twice Listed-placed in France and is the dam of Figure Of Speech, second in the Group 2 July Stakes.

Second dam Epitome is a Nashwan halfsister to the Grade 2 Canadian Handicap twinner Callista and to Noesis, who was twice successful as a three-year-old in France and is the second dam of Criterium International and Prix Lupin winner and sire Act One.

The third dam Proskona, by Mr Prospector, won the Group 2 Premio Umbria and Group 3 Prix de Seine-et-Oise.

Cartesienne, a Pivotal half-sister to Modern Games, Modern News, Mawj and Feminism is a five-year-old Shamardal mare who made €370,000 to Jill Lamb at Goffs last November. She is the only runner out of Modern Ideals who has failed to win.

She was subsequently offered in-foal to Lope De Vega at the Goffs London Sale where she failed to reach her reserve, not selling for €680,000.

Issac Shelby: serious plans ahead

Almost a quarter of a century had elapsed since the iconic blue and green silks of Robert Sangster were last in the July course’s winners’ enclosure following Commander Collins’ victory in the Group 2 Superlative Stakes in 1998.

Isaac Shelby returned the vibrant and unmistakeable colours to the number one spot, this time in the guise of Manton Thoroughbreds run by Sangster’s son Sam who purchased the Night Of Thunder colt as a yearling.

Commander Collins, a son of Sadler’s Wells who features on both sides of Isaac Shelby’s pedigree through Galileo, was sent out to win by Peter Chapple-Hyam, a previous incumbent of the Sangsters’ Wiltshire powerbase.

However, Brian Meehan, who has been training at Manton for 16 years, believes that Isaac Shelby could have a future career more reminiscent of Doctor Devious, who won the race in 1991 for Sangster and Peter Chapple-Hyam, than Commander Collins.

“He’s very nice. You’re always tempted to make predictions but he really is the business I think, he looks really special and could even be a Guineas horse. He’s got a good temperament and Sean [Levey] knows him well so they’re a good package,” remarked Meehan.

Isaac Shelby: the exciting Night Of Thunder colt returned the distinctive Sangster colours back to the winning enclosure at Newmarket

ISAAC SHELBY could follow in Doctor Devious’ hoofprints quite quickly – the champion Ahonoora colt contested and won the Vintage and Dewhurst Stakes following his Newmarket success, and Meehan is keen to keep Isaac Shelby at 7f for the moment with the Newmarket Group 1 firmly on the horizon.

“We’d stay at seven now which I think is ideal but we won’t be in any hurry. I think we’d train him as a Guineas horse now. These horses are special and they’re the reason you do it. You get the most enjoyment out of training winners of course, but when you get horses like him with serious potential it’s exciting.

“I don’t know if we’ll run again [before the Dewhurst] we’ll get him back and sit round the table and make a little plan after a week or so. Goodwood would come too soon, but the Champagne Stakes is a race I’ve thought about.

I love the Breeders’ Cup so the Juvenile Turf is one we’ll definitely factor into our thoughts as well

Isaac Shelby made a lasting first impression with the ease of his debut win at Newbury on the final day in May, but despite that he was still only third choice of the bookies for the five-runner Group 2.

A grandson of Dubawi, who won the Superlative Stakes in 2004 before landing the National Stakes late that season, Isaac Shelby was bred by Elaine Chivers and sold by her Park Wood Stud to Sam Sangster for £92,000 at last year’s Goffs UK Premier Sale.

He is the third foal out of Kentucky Belle, an unraced daughter of Heliostatic, who was bought by Richard Knight for Chivers for just 4,500gns at the Tattersalls February Sale 2019, in-foal to Raven’s Pass.

His broodmare sire Heliostatic is a Galileo full-brother to Irish Derby and Coronation Cup winner Soldier Of Fortune out of a halfsister to Sholokhov and from the family of Group 1 winners Intense Focus and Skitter Scatter.

Rob Hornby with the Group 1 July Cup winner Alcohol Free (No Nay Never)

The horse Isaac Shelby beat in the Superlative Stakes, Victory Dance, comes from the same family as Heliostatic and is a Dubawi half-brother to Skitter Scatter.

Isaac Shelby’s dam Kentucky Belle is a half-sister to the Grade 2 Mac Diarmada Handicap winner Ramazutti by Honors Grade and to My Best Ten, the dam of the stakes winner Vow To Recover.

His second dam Mine Inning is a stakesplaced daughter of Mining and out of Weed It Out.

She, too, was stakes-placed and is a Clever Trick half-sister to Grade 1 American Derby winner and sire Pocket Zipper, Grade 2 Sheridan Stakes winner Jungle Blade and the Grade 3 winner and sire Prince Forli.

Meehan commented that the team at Manton had always held Isaac Shelby in high regard. The fact the colt had come out and proven himself in the cauldron of a scorching hot July course was very satisfying for them all.

Kentucky Belle has a yearling colt by Al Kazeem, who is heading to the sales, and was covered by Sergei Prokofiev this year.

“All winter he’s looked like a nice horse. He’s straightforward with a lovely temperament and is very easy to deal with. We’ve got a great team at home with some very good judges and they’ve always like him.

“It’s easy to think that he was going to be nice, but this is high-end stuff and he’s really proven himself.”