European Flat review of 2022, including Baaeed and Highfield Princess

Sprinters

There was little doubt that Highfield Princess was the sprinter who achieved the highest profile during the season, thanks mainly to completing a Group 1 hat-trick in three countries in the space of not much more than a month in the Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville, the Nunthorpe at York (replay below) and the Flying Five at the Curragh.

The most striking aspect of those wins was the versatility she demonstrated, dropping back from six and a half furlongs in France to the minimum trip for her next two victories and gaining her Nunthorpe win on firmish going before having more than three lengths to spare over a big field on heavy ground at the Curragh.

That’s not forgetting, either, that her first win of the season came over seven furlongs on the tapeta at Newcastle on All-Weather Championships day. As has been well documented, the development of Highfield Princess into a high-class sprinter as a five-year-old could hardly have been imagined when she gained her first career win just two years earlier in an Ayr handicap from a BHA mark of just 58.

But Highfield Princess had a serious rival to claims to being the best sprinter despite finishing in front of Minzaal on all three occasions that they met. Their closest encounter came at Deauville where Minzaal was beaten less than a length into second but the bare form of the Maurice de Gheest was nothing special and, like Highfield Princess, he delivered a much better performance subsequently.

That came when beating the previous season’s winner Emaraaty Ana by the best part of four lengths in the Sprint Cup at Haydock, though unfortunately Minzaal sustained a career-ending injury.

Any discussion of the top sprints in Europe has to mention the elephant – or maybe that should that be kangaroo? – in the room in the form of top-class Australian gelding Nature Strip who left the biggest impression on the division all year when powering to a four-and-a-half length victory in the King’s Stand Stakes ten years on from the last sprinter from down under to win at Royal Ascot, Black Caviar, in what was then the Diamond Jubilee.

The latter race became the Platinum Jubilee this year with a prize-money boost attracting a huge field with more depth to it than the King’s Stand.

Naval Crown got the better of Godolphin stablemate Creative Force on the opposite of the track in a race also contested by the likes of future July Cup winner Alcohol Free and Champions Sprint winner Kinross as well as both Highfield Princess and Minzaal.

Milers

More on Baaeed in the Middle-Distance Performers section below, but before he moved up in distance he did enough over a mile in the first half of the season with successive victories in the Lockinge, Queen Anne and Sussex Stakes to leave a void in a division in which no other miler could command the same authority later in the year. Godolphin did their best to provide some opposition to Baaeed, with five-year-old Real World finishing runner-up to him at Newbury and Royal Ascot before three-year-old Modern Games filled the same position in the Sussex.

Modern Games gained all three of his Group/Grade 1 victories overseas, the last of those the Breeders’ Cup Mile, but that was far from a strong renewal and, in fact, he was the lowest-rated among a trio of his stable’s colts who dominated Europe’s major Guineas in the spring.

Modern Games took the French version while at Newmarket Coroebus got the better of Native Trail who then gained compensation in the Irish equivalent. Coroebus was a high-class 2000 Guineas winner who followed up in a much messier St James’s Palace Stakes and his subsequent fatal accident in the Prix du Moulin was a sad loss. Bayside Boy was only seventh in the St James’s Palace but returned to Ascot later in the year to cause a 33/1 upset when beating Modern Games in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Baaeed’s stablemate Maljoom, winner of the German 2000 Guineas, looked as though he had the potential to make a big impact in the miling division when storming home late for fourth in the congested finish to the St James’s Palace only to miss the remainder of the year but he is one to look out for in 2023.

1000 Guineas winner Cachet wasn’t seen out after Royal Ascot either, finishing fifth in the Coronation Stakes in which Inspiral made a belated but spectacular start to her three-year-old campaign by routing her field by almost five lengths. Inspiral’s first career defeat next time out in the Falmouth Stakes at the hands of 1000 Guineas runner-up Prosperous Voyage was therefore one of the shocks of the season but, after looking as though she might be a contender for Baaeed’s miling crown when bouncing back in the Prix Jacques le Marois, Inspiral let her supporters down again with a lacklustre fourth in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Even more disappointing in the autumn was Inspiral’s chief rival to the title of leading three-year-old filly, Homeless Songs, whose runaway success in the Irish 1000 Guineas was well in advance of her performances both before and since.

Middle-Distance Performers

Baaeed had little left to prove over a mile after the Sussex Stakes and, with plenty of encouragement from his breeding – elder brother Hukum had won the Coronation Cup earlier in the summer - the Juddmonte International was chosen for his first try over a longer trip.

While the strong pace was aimed at exposing any flaws in Baaeed’s stamina, instead, the way the Juddmonte International was run only served to reveal the full extent of his ability. In quickening six and a half lengths clear of the high-class Mishriff, winner of the race the year before by almost as far, in the final furlong, Baaeed put up the performance of his career.

Baaeed followed an identical four-year-old campaign to Frankel, and while both horses’ unbeaten records were still intact after their respective wins at York, Baaeed’s fell on his final start in the Champion Stakes. His usual turn of foot failed to materialise as he passed the post only fourth behind Bay Bridge, the previous season’s Derby/King George winner Adayar (not seen out this year until beating two rivals at the St Leger meeting) and Baaeed’s three-year-old stablemate My Prospero.

As well as Baaeed, another to extend an impressive sequence of Group 1 wins to six in the latest season was the mare Alpinista. Her first wins at the top level had come in Germany in 2021 but after a successful reappearance in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, she gained a first Group 1 win on home turf when beating the Oaks, and future Breeders’ Cup Filly And Mare Turf winner, Tuesday in the Yorkshire Oaks.

While there were several big names missing from the Arc line-up – the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth II Stakes winner Pyledriver was injured, Baaeed and Adayar waited for the Champion Stakes instead, and the latest Derby winner, Desert Crown, had already been retired for the year – it still required further improvement on Alpinista’s part to account for a maximum field at Longchamp where she held on in a close finish with Vadeni and the previous season’s winner Torquator Tasso.

France’s Vadeni showed a fine turn of foot to win the Prix du Jockey Club and, by a much narrower margin, the Eclipse where he came from last to first to beat Mishriff and Native Trail, with Bay Bridge further back. Vadeni’s attempt to emulate St Mark’s Basilica the year before by adding the Irish Champion Stakes to those two wins ended in defeat behind Luxembourg, sidelined for much of the year after finishing third in the 2000 Guineas, and the Grand Prix de Paris winner Onesto, but Vadeni didn’t get the run of the race at Leopardstown and had both those colts behind him in the Arc.

Stayers

At the age of eight, Stradivarius proved the truth in the saying that there’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle when winning the Yorkshire Cup for the third time. That, though, proved to be the final pattern race success – a record 18 of them – in a glittering career which has also seen him collect four Goodwood Cups, three Gold Cups, three Lonsdale Cups and two Doncaster Cups. But there’s already a new star on the staying scene as Stradivarius found when only able to pick up place money behind Kyprios in final bids to win at Ascot and Goodwood again.

Kyprios won all six of his races, completing a unique Group 1 four-timer by going on to win the Irish St Leger and Prix du Cadran and putting up an extraordinary performance at Longchamp where he won by an official margin of twenty lengths despite hanging across the full width of the track in the closing stages.

The same stable’s Yeats won all four of those races at least once during his career but never more than two of them in the same season. Trueshan finished third behind Kyprios and Stradivarius when bidding to win the Goodwood Cup for the second year running, but he did win the Long Distance Cup at Ascot for the third time, avenging the shock defeat Coltrane had inflicted on him in the Doncaster Cup. Trueshan’s mightiest performance of the year, however, came in the Northumberland Plate which he won under 10-8 from a BHA mark of 120.

Eldar Eldarov disappointed in the Long Distance Cup but looked a promising stayer in the making when winning a rough race for the St Leger having also won the Queen’s Vase earlier in the year. As a gelding, fellow three-year-old Deauville Legend, the Great Voltigeur winner, wasn’t eligible for the St Leger, but started favourite for the Melbourne Cup where he made a bold bid, finishing fourth but coming out second-best at the weights.

Two-Year-Olds

It’s not usually until the big autumn races come along that the identity of the season’s leading two-year-old finally becomes clear but we didn’t have to wait that long this year. Little Big Bear’s impressive seven-length win in the Phoenix Stakes in early-August set a high-class standard which proved out of the reach of those who disputed the top two-year-old races later on.

A setback prevented Little Big Bear from contesting any of those himself, but Aidan O’Brien had no shortage of strength in depth in his two-year-old team and won the Middle Park Stakes with Blackbeard, whose five earlier wins included the Prix Morny, and a record eleventh Futurity Trophy with Auguste Rodin.

Blackbeard has already been retired to stud whereas Auguste Rodin, the first foal of Ballydoyle’s very smart filly Rhododendron and a clear-cut winner in heavy ground at Doncaster, looks his stable’s best classic prospect among the colts at this stage.

Noble Style achieved the highest rating among another promising crop of Godolphin two-year-olds, though he too wasn’t seen out after the summer when taking his record to three out three in the Gimcrack Stakes. However, both the Ballydoyle and Godolphin representatives were found wanting in the Dewhurst Stakes in which only a head separated the Acomb/Champagne Stakes winner Chaldean and the Richmond Stakes winner Royal Scotsman.

The exciting Tahiyra was an impressive winner of both her starts, notably in the Moyglare Stud Stakes which she won without her rider having to resort to the whip. Tahiyra was one of only two fillies - the other was Lezoo in the Cheveley Park Stakes - to defeat Ballydoyle’s top two-year-old filly Meditate who, under contrastingly quick conditions at the Breeders’ Cup to those she faced in the Moyglare, ran out a convincing winner of the Juvenile Fillies’ Turf.

Other leading two-year-old fillies were Blue Rose Cen, a five-length winner of the Prix Marcel Boussac whose only defeat in her last five starts came at the hands of a smart colt, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Victoria Road, and the unbeaten Rockfel/Fillies’ Mile winner Commissioning. Also well worth a mention is The Platinum Queen who found only Highfield Princess too good in the Nunthorpe and then went on to become the first two-year-old winner of the Prix de l’Abbaye since 1978.

More from Sporting Life

• Racecards
• Fast results
• Full results and free video replays
• Horse racing news
• Horse racing tips
• Horse racing features
• Download our free iOS and Android app
• Football and other sports tips
• Podcasts and video content

Safer gambling

We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.

If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.

Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.