Posts Tagged ‘aidan o’brien’

Queen Elizabeth II Stakes Preview

The Queen Elizabeth II Stakes takes place this coming Saturday 26th September at Ascot Racecourse. It’s run over a trip of one mile and is a Group 1 race for horses aged 3 years and above. The race offers up £250,000 in added prize money and is now sponsored by Sony.

Adian O’Brien looks to have a strong hand in the race, training four of the current eleven entries. However, his record in this event is particularly bad for some reason with only one winner from seventeen runners.

The betting is currently headed by O’Brien’s Rip Van Winkle at 10/11 generally. The bookies seem to think the race rests between Rip Van Winkle, Delegator and Aqlaam.

Queen Elizabeth II Stakes Trends

Three year olds have won 16 of the last 25 renewals.

6 of the last 10 winners were previous Group 1 winners.

The Celebration Mile has provided 4 of the last 10 winners.

9 of the last 13 winners had finished first or second on their previous start.

Saeed Bin Suroor has won 4 of the last 13 renewals.

Aidan O’Brien has won 1 winner from his last 17 runners.

12 of the last 13 winner had run within the previous 35 days.

No winning filly for 22 years.

8 of the last 10 winners came from the first 3 in the betting.

Queen Elizabeth II Stakes Betting

(Prices from Betfred)
Rip Van Winkle 10/11
Delegator 9/4
Aqlaam 7/2
Zacinto 12/1
Famous Name 14/1
Virtual 25/1
Poet 33/1
Set Sail 200/1
Windsor Palace 200/1

Queen Elizabeth II Stakes Tips

The trends point strongly to a win for Saeed Bin Suroor’s Delgator. He’s currently a 9/4 chance with Betfred.

Get more horse racing tips on the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes from our horse racing forum.

The 2009 Royal Ascot meeting is almost upon us and we thought it was a good idea to share our top five Royal Ascot tips. The Royal Ascot meeting is one of the most popular in the British horse racing calendar and is just as well known for it’s high fashion and famous attendees as it is for the actual horse racing. Here are our five tips to make Ascot as enjoyable and profitable as it can be!

Ignore Aidan O’Brien at your peril
The O’Brien stable cleaned up at last year’s Royal Ascot meeting. The stable have been in fine form so far this season and I’d expect more of the same this time around even though stable jockey Johnny Murtagh is suspended for 2 days. Aidan O’Brien has a particularly good record in the Coventry Stakes having won with Henrythenavigator, Statute Of Liberty, Landseer, Fasliyev, and Harbour Master in recent years. He is represented by Steinbeck in the 2009 Coventry Stakes renewal and the horse warrants respect.

Prince of Wales Stakes a race for punters
A Group 1 race contested over 1m2f, the Prince of Wales stakes is a punter’s paradise with the last 8 winners all having been single figure odds. All winners had also won a Group 1 contest previously in that period. Look for horses that are proven at this trip.

Don’t be afraid of an outsider on Saturday
The Golden Jubilee Stakes, which takes place on the Saturday of the 2009 Royal Ascot meeting, is a race where you can look for a big priced runner to back with only one winning favourite since 1997 and many at very big prices in that period including last years winner Kingsgate Native at 33/1.

Watch your weight
Wednesday’s Royal Hunt Cup has seen only 2 winners carry more than 9st 5lbs to victory in the last decade. Similarly, Saturday’s Wokingham Stakes has produced just one winner carrying over 9st 6lbs in the last decade. Look for runners in both of these events that are carrying less than the weights stated and you’ll make your chances of winner finding a lot more likely.

Keep John Best on your side
Last year’s Royal Ascot was very special for trainer John Best with Flashman Papers winning the Windsor Castle Stakes at 100/1 as well as Kingsgate Native’s victory in the Golden Jubilee Stakes at 33/1. Although the Kent based trainer is sure to be on the radar of my punters this time around, his runners will likely still be available at decent prices when up against some of the bigger yards.

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Aidan O’Brien is the king of the 2000 Guineas with four victories in the last ten years. Rock Of Gibraltar in 2002, Footstepsinthesand in 2005, George Washington in 2006 and last year’s winner Henrythenavigator have made O’Brien the man to fear in the Newmarket showpiece.

The Irish trainer’s horses are often allowed to go off at decent odds as Henrythenavigator winning at 11/1 in 2008 demonstrates. His only winner at cramped odds was 2006 incumbent George Washington at 6/4.

This year O’Brien goes to war with 5 runners, although the participation of Rip Van Winkle has been open to some debate in the last week or so. This horse looked very impressive when winning the Tyros Stakes at Leopardstown but disappointed badly in the Dewhurst and although that wouldn’t put me off on it’s own, I feel he’s being priced up very short on reputation whereas other have solid form in the book.

Of all Aidan’s entries, the one I like most is Mastercraftsman. His best performance for me came in the Group 1 Independent Waterford Wedgwood Phoenix Stakes which was on good to firm ground, the likely going for Saturday’s big race. He was a little disappointing on his last start when 4th behind Naaqoos at Longchamp at the end of last season but I’m always prepared to forgive horses from the O’Brien stable a bad run at the end of a campaign.

A number of his 2 year olds have followed this pattern but Aidan O’Brien has a knack of getting them back to 100% for the start of their 3 year old campaign and I expect Mastercraftsman to be another example of this.

It’s always nice to see one of the smaller stables get a result in the 2000 Guineas and I’d imagine something will pop up in the places at a huge price as is often the case here but I’d expect O’Brien to do it again.

Aidan O’Brien has indicated his superstar horse Duke Of Marmalade could run at Great Leighs on the 27th September at the Breeders Cup trials meeting.

The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is also an option before his crack at the Breeders but Great Leighs remains a possibility.

“I am not ruling him out of the Arc, but we want to run him at the Breeders’ Cup with possibly another run in between,” said O’Brien.

“There is a possibility he might run at Great Leighs on the evening of the QEII Stakes at Ascot.

“They have a nine-and-a-half-furlong race there on Polytrack. But that is only a possibility at the moment.”

If the Duke were to perform well at Great Leighs, the Breeders Cup Classic on a similar surface would be another possible target rather than the Breeders Cup Turf.

The British Horseracing Authority has called Aidan O’Brien and Colm O’Donoghue to face their disciplinary panel over a possible breach of the rules in last month’s Juddmonte Stakes.

Red Rock Canyon is the horse at the centre of the controversy. The question is whether or not Colm O’Donoghue moved his ride off the rail to aid the cause of favourite and stablemate Duke Of Marmalade.

Paul Struthers, media relations manager for the BHA, said: “We have completed the review process and written to Aidan O’Brien and Colm O’Donoghue confirming that they will need to appear before the disciplinary panel in connection with a possible breach of Rule 153(iv) in the Juddmonte International.

“We are obviously conscious of the interest this will generate but, having reviewed the video and read comments attributed to Johnny Murtagh in the press, it was felt that a formal inquiry into the incident had to be held.

“This will ensure that the matter is considered thoroughly, fairly and openly.

“This is the first time we have reviewed a race for a possible breach of ‘team tactics’ since the rules changed in 2007 and we are satisfied that there has been no other race where an inquiry should have been held.

“I would also like to make clear that there is no possibility of the result of the Juddmonte International being affected.”

Another great loss for the world of racing, this one even more sad for me than Sergeant Cecil.

Aidan O’Brien’s Peeping Fawn has been retired. The winner of four Group 1 races last season just wasn’t the same filly on the gallops this year so O’Brien has taken the decision to take her out at the top.

He told the Racing Post: “We took her away from home to work before she was due to run in the Pretty Polly Stakes in June and thing’s weren’t quite 100% with her afterwards. While the problem wasn’t a major one, she didn’t come back the way we had thought she would.”

He added: “As she has been such a great filly, we took the decision on Friday morning to retire her. She will be covered next year.”

Hopefully she will produce some offspring that can light up the racecourse the way she did.