Newmarket: Sun Chariot Stakes

All eyes will be on Longchamp this weekend, and especially tomorrow´s Arc card, the richest in Europe, but in fact today´s racing in the U.K. is better than in France and the prize-money is higher too, thanks to the two immensely valuable sales races for 2yo´s which start the Newmarket card. With 168K GBP for the winner of the fillies race at 14.50 CET and 280K GBP for the colts race half an hour later- both over 7 furlongs, there will be no hanging about here and the winners will have to be serious group race performers. Our two in the fillies race are Osaila (Richard Hannon/ Frankie Dettori), already with good Group One form to her credit, and Very Special (Saeed bin Suroor/ James Doyle), who lived up to her name when winning in modest company at Yarmouth. The colts´ race looks much trickier, but in view of the tremendous Godolphin form at present, we go for Outlaw Country (Charlie Appleby/ Pat Smullen).

Top event here is the Group One Sun Chariot Stakes for fillies over a mile at 16.30, a race in which French fillies have an excellent record. That could be maintained today, as André Fabre trains no fewer than 3 of the 7 runners: Esoterique (Pierre-Charles Boudot), Fintry (Mikael Barzalona) and Miss France (Maxime Guyon). All 3 deserve their place in the line-up and it is difficult to choose between them, but we go for the last-named, who won the 1000 Guineas over this CD in May. That race was won last year by Sky Lantern (Richard Hannon/ Richard Hughes) who also won this race from Integral (Sir Michael Stoute/ Ryan Moore). Most of these have met before, e.g. at Deauville where Esoterique beat Miss France, while Kiyoshi (Charlie Hills/ Jamie Spencer), who showed good speed to win a Doncaster Group Three last time, is also not out of it.

The Group Three Oh So Sharp Stakes over 7 furlongs at 15.55 is probably easier to win that the earlier sales race, and we expect the two Godolphin runners, Local Time (bin Suroor/ Doyle) and Yodelling (Appleby/ William Buick) to be involved in the finish.

The listed race over 6 furlongs at 17.40 is also for fillies -older ones this time- and Minalisa (Rae Guest/ Fran Berry), runner-up in the Ayr Gold Cup last time, looks the likeliest winner, though Indignant (Hannon/ Buick) and Penny Drops (William Haggas/ Moore) both look dangerous.