Trainer Beckett Double Handed for QIPCO 1000 Guineas

Ralph Beckett bids for a coveted first win in Newmarket’s QIPCO 1000 Guineas when his talented fillies Lezoo and Remarquee take on 18 opponents in the race’s biggest field since 21 went to post in 2007. Their rivals include Dermot Weld’s unbeaten Moyglare Stud Stakes winner Tahiyra, who is a strong favourite.

Though success in Sunday’s race, which is the second leg of the 35-race QIPCO British Champions Series, has so far eluded Beckett, he went agonisingly close last year when 33-1 chance Prosperous Voyage just failed to reel in Cachet. With two Oaks wins to his name he excels with fillies, and last year’s five Group 1 wins suggest that the stable has never been stronger.

Lezoo is already a Group 1 winner in the Cheveley Park Stakes, and if she gets the two-furlongs longer trip will have a live chance of providing Frankie Dettori a fifth QIPCO 1000 Guineas in his final year in the saddle. Beckett however feels that Rob Hornby’s mount Remarquee has more persuasive claims.

Some have questioned how the much less race-hardened Remarquee will handle Newmarket’s undulations after she wandered in front at Newbury, with her head a little high, when beating Stenton Glider and Embrace in last month’s Fred Darling Stakes, but Beckett is not concerned.

He said: “Remarquee is the obvious one. She didn’t really get the run of the race and Rob dropped his stick with half a furlong to run, yet she still won with one ear pricked, having wandered around. She’ll have learned a lot.

All the signs are good

“We’ve been here before, having won a few Fred Darlings, and it can be tough getting a filly back in time for the Guineas, but all of the signs are good. She didn’t have a hard race and I’m very happy with her. It’s not a negative that the ground has dried out, as her mother preferred fast ground.”

Beckett is on record saying Lezoo has “no chance on pedigree” of getting a mile, but he saw little point in testing her stamina in a trial. He explained: “We thought about a trial but she’s pretty experienced and she’s not a filly who needs a race. 

“We decided it was likely to prove inconclusive with regards to her stamina, and that it made more sense to run her in the Guineas and find out for sure one way or another, then drop her back to sprints if she didn’t stay. She’s had a pretty straightforward preparation and she’s ready for this. She did her last bit on the grass on Tuesday and that went well.”

Dermot Weld has seldom had a runner in the 1000 Guineas, but Tahiyra has strong claims following her highly impressive defeat of Meditate when stepping up to Group 1 company at the Curragh on only her second start.

The Siyouni filly is owned and bred by the Aga Khan, whose father Prince Aly Khan won in 1959 with the brilliant Petite Etoile, and it speaks volumes for how she must be pleasing Weld at home that she runs here rather than at the Curragh, which he traditionally favours owing to the later timing and has won five times.

Meditate is the sole representative of Aidan O’Brien, whose seven wins in the QIPCO 1000 Guineas include five of the last seven. She ended last season with a clear-cut win in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, but needs to reverse earlier form not only with Tahiyra, but also with Lezoo, who beat her in the Cheveley Park Stakes.

She is already proven at a mile, albeit under very different circumstances on a flat track around a bend at Keeneland, and her trainer believes there are grounds for excusing her two defeats.

He said: “We rode her very forward over seven furlongs in very soft ground at the Curragh and she ran a very good race, but Dermot’s filly came and got her. We might have made a little too much use of her there, and then we felt in the Cheveley Park we may have rushed her back a bit after the Moyglare. We think there were legitimate excuses both times, but this is going to be her first run of the year and so it’s going to be interesting.

“She’s a very lazy filly at home and only shows you what she has to, but we are very happy with her work.”

Godolphin’s Triple Threat

Godolphin are represented by the Charlie Appleby-trained Dream Of Love and Fairy Cross, plus Saeed Bin Suroor’s Mawj.

Champion jockey William Buick partners Dream Of Love, who looked very unlucky not to reel in Mawj over seven furlongs at Meydan in January, rather than recent Nell Gwyn runner-up Fairy Cross, who was beaten much more easily by Mawj over a mile at Meydan and is the mount of last year’s dual QIPCO Guineas winner James Doyle.

Buick said: “At Meydan it was quite a big field and she’d only had two runs before. She got shuffled to the back on a very wet and unpleasant night, and Mawj got clear while we were still stuck in behind.

“We made up an enormous amount of ground to be beaten only a short head, and the extra furlong will definitely help. She’s up against some very good fillies from last year, as well as the winners of some of the trials, so she’s got to step up again, but she’s got a beautiful pedigree and she’s only had the three runs, so there’s still plenty of potential.”

Former three-time champion Oisin Murphy has picked up the ride on Mawj for Bin Suroor, who won the 1000 Guineas with Kazzia and Blue Bunting, and he said: “Saeed has always been good to me and I’ve won two Group 1s for him on Benbatl and another on Royal Marine, so I’m thrilled to be riding for him in the Guineas.

“I respect the opposition obviously, and I thought Tahiyra looked electric last season, but Mawj’s form in Dubai was really good, and her form as a two-year-old was very good too.”

Richard Hannon’s Mammas Girl follows the route taken by the stable’s 2013 1000 Guineas winner Sky Lantern, and its shock 2018 winner Billesdon Brook, having had a run already in the Nell Gwyn Stakes, although unlike her predecessors she won the race, and in some style too, from Fairy Cross, with Karsavina and Sweet Harmony further back. It is also the route taken by last year’s winner Cachet.

Superb Stott Hopes To Continue Rich Vein Of Form

Hannon said: “She had a little abscess at the weekend, but that burst and she’s as good as gold now. Kevin (Stott) came down and had a canter on her on Wednesday morning and she’s looking a million dollars, as she’s come in her coat now, which she hadn’t at Newmarket. She’s been a pleasure to deal with all winter and through the spring, and we are very excited about her.

“It’ll be 50 years almost to the day since dad won the 2000 Guineas with Mon Fils, and it would be great to bookend those 50 years in the business with two Classic winners. I’m looking forward to it immensely.”

Hannon also saddles outsider Powerdress. He said: “Mammas Girl is the one, but Powerdress is a dark horse. She’s a very strong, good-looking filly, and she ran a super race against colts first time out, where she needed it but travelled very well.”

Newmarket trainer Richard Spencer is also two-handed, with Nell Gwyn seventh Sweet Harmony and the Kempton novice winner Naomi Lapaglia, a Shadwell cast-off who provided pinhooker Robbie Mills with a spectacular profit when his 2,000-guinea purchase was resold for 110,000 guineas.

May Hill Stakes winner Polly Pott will be a first Classic runner for Ben Pauling, a Grade 1-winning trainer at the Cheltenham Festival who inherited the filly upon the retirement of Harry Dunlop.