Memory unforgettable in Albany Stakes
Richard Hughes and Richard Hannon claimed their third win of this year’s Royal Ascot meeting when Memory just got up in the Group Three Albany Stakes.
The field split into two groups as before but this time the far-side group did not have the decisive advantage that they had enjoyed earlier in the fixture.
Tiz My Time, the American runner trained by Kenny McPeek, set fast fractions for those on the near side and may well have pulled the others through until Haley Turner hit the front in the final furlong with Margot Did.
Memory has been slowly away, just as she had on her debut at Goodwood last month, but she came through with a strong late run to beat Margot Did by a head with Tiz My Time two lengths away in third.
Hannon is a master of training two-year-olds but he has accepted that this is one who has to have matters very much on her own terms. So far there are no complaints. “This filly, she never hit the gates and she never has done,” he said. “And there’s no real point in buzzing her up to jump the gate. You might as well let her do her own thing – and once she gets rolling she’s pretty decent. She’s only a little filly but she’s good.”
Morning glories, those horses who show All on the gallops but nothing on the track, are the bane of a trainer’s life but this filly has her priorities right according to Hannon. “Sometimes you were her in between a couple and she doesn’t work very well,” he said. “But she comes to the races and she knows her job here.”
She also knows her ow mind according to Richard Hughes who said: “At Goodwood I jumped and she landed on all fours, so I went ‘yah!’ and she wouldn’t go so I just sat on her and then she came good. I thought she was over it today but she did exactly the same thing and if you bully her, she won’t go.
“It’s only for Elvis at home, the little lad in the yard who has managed her from day one. He has done a brilliant job with her.
“She will get a mile standing on her head and she needed every yard of the six furlongs today. The filly that we beat was actually going exceptionally well at the two pole but I managed to get in behind her and in the end I outstayed her.”
“She’s small but she’s as good a moving filly as I’ve sat on for a while. Her forte is how good a mover she is and she’s a beautiful ride. When we got to the start today I thought we wouldn’t be beaten.
“We’ve had a good few two-year-old fillies winning this year and she would be head and shoulders above the others.”
There was a time when Mikhail Glinka was considered, if not head and shoulders, then at least one of Aidan O'Brien's leading three-year-olds.
He may yet prove his worth and got the better of Theology in a thrilling finish to the Group Three Queen’s Vase, winning by a nose. Winning jockey Johnny Murtgah said: “It was a bit of a Micky Mouse race, with stop-start, stop-start, and I didn’t really get a nice run. I was pushed out into the middle of the track, but he stays well. I think he could be a Gold Cup horse. He’s a big classy horse with a high-cruising speed, and he didn’t get the run of the race yet still won.”
O’Brien said of the colt: “He stays well and we’d have to look at the St Leger now. Johnny did well on the horse because the colt has had a couple of setbacks since he last ran and we weren’t sure about the trip, but he was very strong on him and he did a great job. He nursed him around and I don’t think he could have come much later.
“I think he’ll learn a lot from today. I was never confident but always hopeful. He has a Classic pedigree and horses with that sort of breeding usually stay if everything else falls into place.
“We started off late this year and our horses were behind - they’ve been progressing and catching up, but so has everyone else’s horses.
“We’re making up ground as we’re going along. It’s like riding a bicycle. We’re pedalling as fast as we can but we don’t want the chain to come off.”
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