December 23, 2024

Sir Percy set for Derby; Speciosa added to Oaks

Last updated: 5/27/06 9:03 PM


Anthony Pakenham’s SIR PERCY (Mark of Esteem [Ire]) on Saturday passed his final test with flying colors and will head to Epsom
next Saturday for the Epsom Derby (Eng-G1). Having sustained a pulled muscle
when runner-up in the English Two Thousand
Guineas (Eng-G1) at Newmarket, last year’s Vintage S. (Eng-G2) and Dewhurst S.
(Eng-G1) hero
completed his
recovery when pleasing connections in a 10-furlong racecourse gallop on Lingfield’s
Polytrack

“He worked over 10 furlongs this morning and we were very happy with him,”
trainer Marcus
Tregoning said. “If he comes out of it OK, he will start in the
Derby. The ground
at home is too soft, so we used the Polytrack for a proper gallop at racing pace
and I was
impressed with him. It was left-handed, and he came down Lingfield’s hill
extremely well, so
the work went to plan — we have a good idea how he’ll come down the hill at Epsom
now. He
was coming away readily at the end, so that points to the fact that he’ll stay
the mile and a
half.”

Trainer Pam Sly, her son Michael, and Dr. Tom Davies paid the
supplementary fee of £20,000 on Saturday to add English One Thousand Guineas
(Eng-G1) winner SPECIOSA (Danehill Dancer) to Friday’s Epsom Oaks (Eng-G1), for which a field of 16 stood
their ground
at Saturday’s stage. Also added to the mile-and-a-half classic were Claudia
Jungo-Corpataux’s Blue Wind S. (Ire-G3) winner GALATEE (Galileo [Ire]), Robert
Barnett’s
Cheshire Oaks victress TIME ON (Sadler’s Wells) and the Heading for the
Rocks
Partnership’s Lupe S. dead-heater RISING CROSS (Cape Cross [Ire]).

Speciosa’s
jockey Michael Fenton is looking forward to resuming the partnership with the
May 7
Newmarket classic heroine.

“She had a week off after the Guineas and has been
doing two
canters a day,” he said. “She looks brilliant and took the Guineas
good — she is very
tough. I’m pretty confident — we definitely wouldn’t waste a run if we didn’t
think there was a
good chance she’ll stay, but we’ll find out on the day.”

Time On, who captured
the Chester
prep on May 10, will represent conditioner John Dunlop and he is hopeful of a bold
show.

“She’s
fine and has been working well,” he said. “She’s very healthy, stays well and
Frankie (Dettori)
rides, so she has lots of things in her favor.”

Trainer Jim Bolger added further
flavor to the classic with the unbeaten Galatee, which swells the Irish challenge to four
alongside an Aidan
O’Brien-trained trio headed by Susan Magnier’s Musidora S. (Eng-G3) runner-up ALEXANDROVA
(Sadler’s Wells). As expected, Sir Michael Stoute has left in John Greetham’s
Musidora winner
SHORT SKIRT (Diktat), Ballymacoll Stud’s Swettenham Stud
Fillies’ Trial S.
heroine SCOTTISH STAGE (Selkirk) and His Highness the Aga Khan’s Pretty Polly S.
winner RIYALMA (Selkirk), while scratching the same owner’s Lingfield Oaks Trial
scorer Sindirana (Kalanisi [Ire]).