William Buick’s ride, Ortensia and Mahmood Al Zarooni trained, Sepoy set for the Darley July Cup
Two Australian stars will be lining up for the Darley July Cup challenge. The seven-year-old bay mare, Ortensia is all set to represent the trainer, Paul Messara while the formerly Australian trained, four-year-old chestnut gelding, Sepoy will get saddled by the Godolphin trainer, Mahmood Al Zarooni.
Excited about the third outing of the new season for the mare, the trainer commented:
He said: "Prior to the King's Stand she didn't seem to handle the environment. She got upset in the pre-parade ring and broke out into quite a big sweat. By the time of the race she was very revved up and agitated and had run her race before she had even got there."
The Australian bay mare entered the season with grace and glamour by claiming the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint Sponsored By Emirates NBD (Turf) on 31st March, 2012 at the Meydan race course over five furlongs.
She was ridden by jockey, Craig A. Williams, and the two took their flight off from the tenth gate, and ended up defeating the favourite entry of the race, Sole Power, by 1 ¼ lengths.
It will be the first time in her four years’ career that the seven-year-old bred by L. D. Rhodes will become the mount for the St Leger winner jockey, William Buick.
Her Australian rival will the four-time Group 1 winner, Elusive Quality’s four-year-old chestnut colt out of mare, Watchful. This he achieved when he was under the conditioning of the previous trainer, Peter Snowden.
"When he arrived here (in Newmarket) he was a bit down. We gave him an easy time to recover. He has recovered and is in good form. He did a piece of work on Saturday and he's showing that sort of form (as he did in Australia).
"I don't know why he ran like he did at Meydan. The surface, or sometimes when they travel they get really down”.
Despite the two heart breaking failures that the Darley bred went through during the two seasonal outings, the connections are highly anxious and confident about his performance in the Darley July Cup.
If July 2012 will get to become the time when Sepoy lands a race for the first time the royal blues or not, will become news soon.
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