Ben Linfoot reflects on Sun Goddess’ Cheveley Park win in a record time with more records potentially on the line.
“Sun Goddess looks a freak, doesn’t she?”
Aidan O’Brien summed it up nicely after the Moyglare, as Sun Goddess kept the flag flying for his Ballydoyle yard that he had earlier revealed was fighting a mystery low-grade respiratory infection.
As others failed to run to form, Sun Goddess was improving hers over a trip they didn’t know if she’d stay. Her six-and-a-half length victory was emphatic.
With seven furlongs in soft ground at the Curragh looking no problem, dropping back to six furlongs for a red-hot Cheveley Park 13 days later asked another question.
Back over six, on faster ground, on a faster track, against the Prix Morny and Sky Bet Lowther winners, on her eighth start of the season, could she prove herself to have the speed, an iron constitution and versatility to match?
Again, the answer was an emphatic yes, yes and yes.
With stablemate Haffner bouncing back to form in the Royal Lodge earlier, the Aidan roll-ups helped her go off a very well-supported 5/6 favourite and she didn’t disappoint, shrugging off the challenges of first Senorita Bonita and finally Libertango to win by a length in a course record time.
One of the first off the bridle, Ryan Moore rode her out of the Dip looking up against it, with the speedy Senorita Bonita edging to the lead a furlong out while Libertango looked to be travelling best of all wider of the pack on the far side under Billy Loughnane.
But Sun Goddess gathered herself up with poise for the final climb, lengthening into contention and then the lead with all the class of a filly who has now won three Group Ones in her last four races.
That could, in theory, turn into an unbelievable five G1 wins before the year’s out, a record top-level haul for a juvenile, with the Fillies’ Mile back at Newmarket on October 9 and then the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Keeneland on October 31 pencilled in, a schedule that will take her total runs for the year to 10.
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Unorthodox, remarkable, we haven’t been here before, even with O’Brien, who won four juvenile Group Ones with Johannesburg in 2001, but she could do it, even if she will have to prove one more thing.
Will she stay a mile?
By a sprinter, Sioux Nation, out of a mare by a sprinter, Starspangledbanner, the speed in her pedigree is shining through, but she is also related to a horse who stayed 10 furlongs and the way she has been hitting the line over six and seven furlongs suggests she might just relish the 1600 metres.
Moore thinks she’ll stay.
So does O’Brien, who said: “I can’t remember having one that classy, with that speed, and with that distance range before. She looks very unusual.
“She is big and she doesn’t look like a two-year-old. She looks like a three-year-old. She is a massive, big, specimen. If she didn’t change anything from now to next year she is plenty big enough, and she would still be considered a big three-year-old.”
Generally 7/4 for the 1000 Guineas, she will have to prove she has trained on next spring, but let’s forget her Classic campaign for a minute.
There is a potential record-breaking juvenile season to consider yet.
It remains unlikely.
O’Brien won’t want to push it regarding her ridiculous schedule, even with records on the line.
“We will see how she is,” he said. “We will see with the balance of her training whether that has taken much out of her and whether she is ready to go, or not.”
But two more visits to Newmarket and Keeneland combined with two more wins would set Sun Goddess apart from the rest.
Then she really would look a freak, wouldn’t she?
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