Wesley Ward does not mess around when it comes to the Prix Morny.
Ward has sent four runners to the Group 1 2-year-old fixture at Deauville: No Nay Never, Lady Aurlelia, and, most recently, in 2020, Campanelle all won. Hootenanny finished second in 2014, a year after No Nay Never’s tally.
Ward’s fifth try at the Morny, contested over a straight six furlongs at Deauville, comes Sunday, when Outfielder, a brilliant winner of his lone start, a May 23 turf sprint maiden at Churchill Downs, meets five rivals.
Ward long has done business with Coolmore connections, but Ward trains Outfielder for Amo Racing while Coolmore and trainer Aidan O’Brien send the horse to beat from Ireland, Gstaad. A debut winner at Navan, Gstaad won the Group 2 Coventry at Royal Ascot, another six-furlong dash, stalking the pace under Ryan Moore before coming with a sustained run that pushed him three lengths clear at the finish. There were 19 others in the Coventry, and third-place Coppull, another Morny entrant, franked the form with a sharp July 31 score in the Group 2 Richmond at Goodwood.
The Charlie Appleby-trained Godolphin colt Wise Approach finished second in the Norfolk at Royal Ascot behind perhaps an even better O’Brien-trained winner, Charles Darwin, and returned with a highly rated four-length listed win July 18 at Newbury, where Wise Approach stretched back out to six furlongs.
And if that’s not enough, also entered is the filly Venetian Sun, winner of the Albany at Royal Ascot. She made it three wins from three starts when landing Group 2 Duke of Cambridge in her last start, July 11 at Newmarket.
As for Outfielder, Ward has aimed the colt, by Speightstown, toward the Morny since he decided to bypass Royal Ascot, which, Ward said, came up too quickly after Outfielder’s debut. Outfielder led on a fast pace in his debut but showed nothing like fatigue in the homestretch, drawing away to a 6 1/2-length win while asked for next to nothing by jockey John Velazquez. David Egan, a retained rider for Amo, has the Morny mount, and if Ward’s history in the Morny serves as a guide, he just might be sitting on a rocket ship.
Cinderella's Dream goes in Romanet
A second Group 1 Sunday at Deauville, the Prix Romanet over 1 1/4 miles for older fillies and mares, drew eight entrants,+ including one with an American history and, it might be presumed, an American future. Cinderella’s Dream won a pair of New York turf route stakes last summer before finishing second in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Trained by Appleby, she was said earlier in the year to be a candidate for the Diana Stakes in July at Saratoga, but instead stayed home in England to win the Group 1 Falmouth on July 11. Cinderella’s Dream has been to Dubai as well as America but makes her French debut in the Romanet, which she should win if her form holds.
Cinderella’s Dream as a 4-year-old gives seven pounds to 3-year-old Bedtime Story, taken out Friday’s Yorkshire Oaks by O’Brien and Coolmore in favor of the Romanet. Bedtime Story floundered over heavy ground at Goodwood in the Nassau Stakes, won by her stablemate Whirl, but her second in the Prix de Diane, the French Oaks, suggests that with help from weight-for-age conditions, she could give Cinderella’s Dream a run over a course rated good-to-soft as of Friday.
BC Challenge race at Goodwood
In England, Moon Target should be solidly favored in the Group 3 Prestige Stakes, a seven-furlong Goodwood race for 2-year-old fillies that’s part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series. Moon Target, trained by Mark Prescott for her breeder, Cheveley Park Stud, has started her career with a pair of blowout wins, the first in a Newmarket maiden stakes, the more recent in a novice stakes at Yarmouth. Sunday’s race marks a step up in class but Moon Target’s victories came by 5 1/2 and 7 1/2 lengths.
Asfoora takes Nunthorpe
The Australian mare Asfoora on Friday won the big race in England, the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes, but no mention was made of her coming to America.
The Nunthorpe, a five-furlong dash at York, is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series, and Asfoora, who was home by 1 1/4 lengths over huge longshot Ain’t Nobody, earned automatic fees-paid entry into the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar. The last three Nunthorpe winners – Bradsell, Live In the Dream, and Highfield Princess – all raced in the BC Turf Sprint, but while Asfoora’s trainer, Henry Dwyer, mentioned the possibility the mare could return to England in 2026, he said nothing – at least nothing that got quoted by overseas racing media – about traveling to California this fall.
Seven-year-old Asfoora campaigned during 2024 in Great Britain as well, winning the King Charles III at Royal Ascot and ending her adventure abroad with a fourth in the Nunthorpe. This year, she ran decently in the King Charles, checking in fifth of 20, and was worse in the Group 2 Qatar at Goodwood before turning things around Friday. Stalking the pace under Oisin Murphy, Asfoora about a furlong and a half out came through a large gap that opened when Manaccan began fading and Night Raider edged right, forging to the lead and holding firm to the finish.
Ain’t Nobody came from far back at 75-1 on the American tote to nose out Frost at Dawn for second. Arizona Blaze, the 7-2 American favorite, made no impression.
Asfoora ($24.10) is by Flying Artie out of Golden Child, by I Am Invincible. The mare returns to Australia after her three-race sortie to England.
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