Eirene being led into Newmarket’s Winner’s Enclosure
THE year’s first English Classic start this week with Newmarket’s Craven Meeting and yesterday, the second day of the historic meeting, saw Dean Ivory’s Eirene run a great race to be third in the Group Three Nell Gwyn at 20/1.
After a very cold and wet winter, the horses have probably been taken by surprise this week as temperatures soared into the 20s yesterday and we had genuine good ground. The stable runner, a dual winner last year including the Listed St Hughs’ Stakes at Newbury over five furlongs, was stepping up to seven furlongs for the first time in seven career starts as eleven went to post for what over the years has been a pointer to the 1,000 Guineas.
Held up by Robert Winston, the daughter of Declaration Of War always travelled nicely and she made headway a furlong from home. Eirene did hang right and but for that may well have come second but she stayed on for a comfortable third, two lengths behind Godolphin’s winner, Soliloquy and just a neck behind the runner-up, Altyn Orda.
The Michael Yarrow-owned filly was a 20/1 shot in the race and she certainly belied those odds. She is in the English 1000 Guineas and is still a big outsider at 66/1 although one suspects she would struggle to turn the tables on the winner, who is one of the market leaders for the fillies’ Classic on Sunday 6th May.
While one could not rule out the stable filly winning over a mile and the French 1,000 Guineas is another possibility, on the evidence of yesterday and her form last year, she may be better suited by seven furlongs or even dropping back to six. As well as Classic options, there is the Group Three Jersey Stakes over seven furlongs for three-year-olds on the second day of Royal Ascot.
Wherever, she runs this year, Eirene is a filly with a future and an exciting prospect for owner and trainer.
