Was, Princess Highway try to revive the magic in Pretty
Polly
It seems a long time since Was captured the Epsom Oaks, but the
formerly-expensive and now-priceless commodity has been kept in training, which
tells its own story, and she bids to get back on track in Sunday’s Group 1
Pretty Polly Stakes at The Curragh.
Despite managing third placings in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood and
Yorkshire Oaks in August, there was a feeling of anti-climax to her 2012
campaign and her return fourth over a mile in the May 25 Ridgewood Pearl Stakes
would have put her right for this test. Jockey Joseph O’Brien is hoping for
better.
“She ran a nice race at the Curragh earlier on in the year over a mile and
that trip is probably a bit short of her best,” he said. “She’s stepping back up
to a mile and a quarter here, so we’ll be hoping for a good run.”
Due to the generous weight-for-age terms that show no sign of being revised,
she has to give an enormous 12-pound concession to the highly progressive
sophomore Alive Alive Oh and that may prove beyond her. That filly launched
herself into prominence when registering a six-length success from Was’s stable
companion Magical Dream in the May 7 Salsabil Stakes over this trip at Navan.
She has since been to Royal Ascot for the Ribblesdale Stakes only to be
scratched late when the rain stayed away and the ground firmed up.
“That was the first time she’d ever had a journey of any real length but she
took it all in her stride, thankfully,” trainer Tommy Stack’s son and assistant
Fozzy told PA Sport. “It was just a shame she couldn’t run. It will be a long
time before we scratch a favorite at Ascot again, I can say that. But the owners
are very understanding and they want her for a long time, not just a good time.
The ground was very hard at Ascot, so it was the correct decision, we feel,
anyway.
“She seems well, she’s taking on the older fillies but she seems well and I
don’t think I’d swap her for anything in the race. She should have a very good
chance.”
Princess Highway is another who failed to build on an impressive early
three-year-old campaign at the end of last term, with her emphatic six-length
dismissal of The Fugue and the re-opposing Oaks runner-up Shirocco Star in the
Ribblesdale placing her among the very best of her generation. Subsequently
third in the Irish Oaks in July, she was unplaced in both the Prix Vermeille at
Loncghamp in September and the E.P. Taylor Stakes at Woodbine the following
month and was upset at 8-13 in the Blue Wind Stakes over this trip on her
four-year-old bow at Naas May 15. She is tried in blinkers for the first time
here and if they spark a revival on ground she relishes, she could yet re-emerge
as a leading force in this division.
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