News Round-Up: Jim Bolger's latest superstar two-year-old, New Approach, is now officially Europe's leading juvenile after winning a National Stakes at the Curragh that is being described as the best in a generation.
The unbeaten son of Galileo has been handed a rating of 124 for Sunday's impressive defeat of Rio De La Plata and Myboycharlie and that is the same mark that George Washington finished his two-year-old career on in 2005.
New Approach still has the option of maintaining the career path followed by his former stable companion Teofilo last year and can take in next month's Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket but already he looks all but guaranteed of topping this year's European two-year-old handicap.
"It will take a real top performance to top what happened on Sunday. New Approach looks a very high class colt. He has come up through the grades and keeps finding more and more. I thought it was easily his most impressive performance at the Curragh," said Ireland's senior flat handicapper, Garry O'Gorman, yesterday.
"I've looked back at the last 15 years of the National Stakes and in terms of quality it looks the best race in that time," O'Gorman added. "Hawk Wing and Dubawi both got 122 when they won the National so New Approach is 2lb higher than anything else in the race in the last 15 years."
In recent years Johannesburg, a four-time Group One winner in four different countries, ended his juvenile career with a rating of 126, while Fasliyev in 1999 was on 125 after a wide margin Prix Morny victory. This year's Morny winner, Myboycharlie, remains on 122 after his run at the weekend but O'Gorman said: "The French level might be a little high so he might lose a pound or two before the end of the season. Having said that, I'm not convinced he stayed."
John Oxx has outlined some transatlantic options for his luckless three-year-old filly Arch Swing who he now believes is ripe for a trip in excess of a mile.
Arch Swing was badly hampered when placed in the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown earlier in the month, a race that followed another placed effort off a slow pace in the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket. "I think Arch Swing is crying out for a distance and there is either the Sun Chariot at Newmarket or a couple of races across the pond," Oxx said yesterday.
"There is the Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Keeneland (October 13th) and there's the EP Taylor at Woodbine (October 21st)," he added. "
In other international news, the Aidan O'Brien pair of Yeats and Septimus, winners of the Irish Leger and the Doncaster Cup respectively last week, have escaped penalties for the Melbourne Cup in early November.
However, it is anther Ballydoyle stayer, Saturday's Curragh Leger runner-up Scorpion, that could now be the O'Brien runner in the race that stops a nation.
Former Cheltenham Gold Cup winner War Of Attrition has stepped up his work-rate ahead of an eagerly-awaited return to the track. Mouse Morris' chaser was denied the opportunity of defending his crown last season due to a tendon injury. But after undergoing stem cell regeneration treatment, he was sent for a crucial scan recently that showed his injury to be healing well.
