Simple Verse among 28 entries to defend crown in Fillies & Mares

Last year’s QIPCO British Champions Fillies & Mares heroine, Simple Verse, heads 28 entries remaining in this year’s renewal.

Winner of the Ladbrokes St Leger and QIPCO British Champions Fillies’ & Mares’ Stakes last season, she was not at her best in three races over a mile and a half in the first half of the season but, stepped back up in distance, bounced back with a pulsating last-gasp victory in the DFS Park Hill Stakes over an extended one mile six furlongs at Doncaster last month.

She will either defend her crown in this contest step up to two miles for the first time in the QIPCO British Champions Long Distance Cup.

“My suspicion is that she will run in the staying race, but I don’t know for sure,” says Qatar Racing Manager David Redvers. “It depends on whether she stays in training next year and that decision has yet to be made by Sheikh Fahad and his brothers. The extra two furlongs makes all the difference to her and you would imagine that the two miles would suit her well.

“She’s something like 6-1 for the Long Distance Cup, and 12-1 for the Fillies’ & Mares’. We’ve got another filly running in the latter for sure, in Mountain Bell, so my hunch is that she will go for the staying race.”

The other entries feature a strong Irish contingent including Zhukova, who beat US Army Ranger last time and is chasing a fifth straight success, Minding, Found and Seventh Heaven.

Full entries for the QIPCO Fillies & Mares Stakes:

Bateel (IRE)
Bocca Baciata (IRE)
California (IRE)
Endless Time (IRE)
Found (IRE)
Furia Cruzada (CHI)
Journey (GB)
Maleficent Queen (GB)
Mambomiss (FR)
Simple Verse (IRE)
Speedy Boarding (GB)
Zhukova (IRE)
Architecture (IRE)
Best In The World (IRE)
Even Song (IRE)
Highlands Queen (FR)
Left Hand (GB)
Mango Tango (FR)
Minding (IRE)
Mountain Bell (GB)
Nezwaah (GB)
Pretty Perfect (IRE)
Promising Run (USA)
Queen’s Trust (GB)
Seventh Heaven (IRE)
So Mi Dar (GB)
The Black Princess (FR)
Turret Rocks (IRE)