Osborne looking to crown fantastic season with Random Harvest in Virgin Bet Sun Chariot Stakes

Saffie Osborne’s first full season without a claim could hardly have gone better, but it would top it all if Random Harvest were to win Saturday’s Virgin Bet Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket on what is expected to be her final racecourse appearance.

Osborne’s cool ride on Metier in the Chester Cup back in May showed she can hold her own among the best, and she has hardly looked back, with well over 60 winners already this year, including a first domestic Group race on Random Harvest in Ascot’s Valiant Stakes.

She has also advertised her skills to a much wider audience by landing the Racing League’s jockeys’ title for a second successive time, and by riding two winners for the successful girls’ team against international stars at the Shergar Cup.

The Ed Walker-trained Random Harvest faces three established Group 1 winners in a field of eight for Saturday’s race, which is the last in the 35-race QIPCO British Champions Series before QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday October 21, and so Osborne is realistic about her prospects. She insists, however, that a line can be drawn through the latest run at Goodwood, and she believes the filly has plenty going for her. 

Osborne said: “Random Harvest has been unbelievable for my career, as she gave me a first Group win in Italy last autumn, and then a first Group win in Britain at Ascot on King George day. She’s also been a neck second twice at Royal Ascot, and this year it was in a Group 2.

Her win on King George day was extra special

“These are the kind of horses you need to take your career to the next level and I’m lucky that she came along at the right time. I’m just really grateful to Ed and to her owner Lady Bamford for sticking with me after I first got on her for the first time at Royal Ascot last year because of her light weight.

“She’s provided me with some really special days and her win on King George day was extra special. She was a very willing partner that day, setting the fractions I wanted her to set, and she was really tough when Roman Mist came at her in the last half furlong.”

Random Harvest has since beaten only one rival in Goodwood’s Celebration Mile, but Osborne can explain.

She said: “She ideally wants quick ground and it went very soft that day, as it had done when she ran in the Falmouth. She’s tactically fairly versatile, but she runs her best races on the front end and that day she was edgy in the gates and jumped a bit slowly, so nothing went right for her.

“Saturday’s race is a proper Group 1, as you’d expect, and there will be no hiding place, but the ground should be ideal and Newmarket is a front runner’s tracks. I think she’s up to running a big race, and it’s a race that throws up a few surprises, as it did last year [when 16-1 chance Fonteyn won].”

Reflecting on the season as a whole she added: “It’s been transformative for my career – especially the last couple of months. Having Tony Hind as my agent this year has been massive, and I’m lucky that I ride for people who fill me with confidence and haven’t tied me down to instructions. I’ve won four Racing League races on Tregony for Clive Cox, and those competitions have been great for me, so it was great to win a Listed race on her at Newmarket last week.”

Also bidding for a first Group 1 win is Heredia, who showed a terrific turn of foot to come from last to first in last month’s Group 3 Atalanta Stakes at Sandown and was supplemented on Monday at a cost of £20,000. She too has a bit to find, and she arrives via a different route to the stable’s previous Sun Chariot winners Sky Lantern (2013) and Billesdon Brook (2019), who were both won the 1000 Guineas, but she is very much on a roll and trainer Richard Hannon is optimistic.

Hannon, who enjoyed Group 1 success at Longchamp on Sunday with Rosallion, said: “She’s improved massively in the last two months and she’s on the crest of a wave. She goes on any ground and I think she’ll run a big race.”

Accounting for the recent improvement he added: “Because she won when she went to Royal Ascot last year we perhaps didn’t realise she had a hard race there. I don’t think she was ever in quite the same form again, but she’s never moved better than she has done lately and she’s as fit as a fiddle, so we are looking forward to it.”

Three-time Group 1 winner Inspiral is a hot favourite and will take a deal of beating if she runs to her best, having looked as good as ever when putting a soft-ground disappointment in Goodwood’s Sussex Stakes behind her with a second win on a less testing surface in Deauville’s Prix Jacques Le Marois.

A winner of the Fillies’ Mile at the corresponding meeting two years ago and ridden as usual by Frankie Dettori, for whom she would be a 500th Newmarket winner, she bids to provide owner-breeders the Cheveley Park Stud with a third win in the race following Peeress (2005) and Integral (2014). However, she faces a potentially tough opponent from France, just as Integral did when returning for her second Sun Chariot in 2015.

On that occasion Integral was beaten half a length by Esoterique, a dual Group 1 winner at Deauville who represented Andre Fabre and Baron de Rothschild. By coincidence Inspiral’s main rival Mqse de Sevigne is also a dual Group 1 winner at Deauville and represents the very same trainer and owner combination.

Mqse de Sevigne’s latest win in the Prix Jean Romanet was over 1m2f and on ground very different from that which is expected to prevail at Newmarket, but Fabre’s record on the Rowley Mile is a highly impressive 25 winners from 79 runners, at a strike rate of only just short of one in three. 

She will be ridden, as in both Group1 wins, by rising young French star Alexis Pouchin, who finished last in a Goodwood Group 3 on his only previous ride in Britain. 

Last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf winner Meditate is the third top-level winner in the line-up. Aidan O’Brien’s No Nay Never filly has yet to win this year, but she has run well on occasions, notably when second to the brilliant Tahiyra in the Irish 1000 Guineas and more recently when fourth behind the same filly in Leopardtown’s Matron Stakes. 

O’Brien has won the Sun Chariot three times, most recently with Roly Poly in 2017, and it would not be a great surprise if Meditate returned to her best on ground which could well be on the fast side.
The field is completed by Coppice, a stable-mate of Inspiral who won Royal Ascot’s Sandringham Stakes and a Listed race over Saturday’s course and distance but finished down the field behind Heredia at Sandown in between, and Goldana, who was a Listed winner in Germany last season and has been third in a Group 3 in Ireland for new connections.