The Oaks (G1)
June 3, 2021
Fourteen go to post with five travelling from Ballydoyle with the highly touted Santa Barbara leading the quintet.
Santa Babara didn’t justify the confidence bestowed on her in the ante-post market in the 1000 Guineas, drifting from 7/4 she was returned 5/2J favourite when running fourth under Ryan Moore.
Greenness certainly contributed to her downfall, she was a once-raced maiden winner as a juvenile.
She didn’t have the experience of the winner, Mother Earth, her stable companion, she came to win it but didn’t know how, hanging left in the final furlong, she dropped from second to fourth in the final strides, Jane Chappel-Hyam’s Saffron Beach passing her to take second. Ryan stays loyal however there’s a similar market weakness about her going into this contest as there was for the Guineas, she’s uneasy and on the drift.
Snowfall, the Musidora winner, will be ridden by Frankie Dettori. Can he do what he did in the Guineas on Mother Earth.
This will be her ninth run, a Curragh Maiden win to her name as a juvenile she was got plenty of experience at Stakes level having contested twice at G1 level, in the Moyglare and Fillies Mile, on neither occasion did she trouble the judge. She was a different filly at York, Ryan capitalising on that experience she made all pulling clear to win 3¾L from Noon Star with Roger Varian’s Teona a further ½L back in third and George Boughey’s Mystery Angel another ½L back in fourth.
Roger Varian also runs Zeyaadah in the Shadwell colours, unbeaten in three runs as a two-year-old she did well to run second in the Cheshire Oaks to Mark Johnston’s Dubai Fountain who’d been given a canny ride by Franny Norton. Zeyaadah having been trapped on heels behind Aidan O’Brien’s La Jaconde until the 2F pole was too late to catch the winner however she ran on well and the further she goes the better she’ll be. The pair had pulled clear.
Roger’s third runner Save A Forest was second in the Lingfield Oaks Trial behind Archie Watson’s Sherbet Lemon who defied odds of 28/1 to win. Hugo Palmer’s Ocean Road was back in third and Ballydoyles Divinely placed fourth with Martyn Meade’s Technique well held in seventh. The market here suggests the O’Brien filly will come forward the most from the race, she’s a 14/1 shot as opposed to 40/1 available about her conquers.
Willow the final runner of the Balldoyle quintet will be ridden by Wayne Lordan. She won her Maiden third time of asking at Leopardstown in October. Two run’s this year, she improved from a down the field Listed run in Navan to run third in the G3 Blue Wind Stakes at Naas.
Her dam, Peeping Fawn ran second here in 2007 at 20/1 to Light Shift before going on to win the Pretty Poly, Irish Oaks, Nassau Stakes, and Yorkshire Oaks, all G1 events. She’d run five times before the Oaks and the hint of a superstar didn’t dawn until she tackled 1m4F for the first time, we didn’t know how good she was.
Embed from Getty ImagesWe don’t know how good her daughter is yet.
Like her mother, she’d had the five run’s before the Oaks, like her mother she has only won a Maiden, like her mother she’s never raced over a 1m4F until this, like her mother she could run well in the Oaks.
She might even go one better.
Recommendation
Willow 25/1 ew
