It's not often that a Group One winner throws up another Group One winner. It's even less rare for them both to have achieved top status in the same race but that's the circle that Pharmacist can close in tomorrow's Heinz 57 Phoenix Stakes at Leopardstown.
The first Group One race for juveniles in Europe has attracted a field of 11 with four cross-channel raiders. Black Amber, who reversed July Stakes form with Bertollini when winning the Prix Robert Papin at Maissons Laffitte, looks the best of the British-trained horses but it's worth betting that this Heinz will be fought out between the home team.
Access All Areas and the Aidan O'Brien-trained trio of Coralita, Bugatti Reef and Lavery will have their supporters but Pharmacist on performance and on pedigree looks the one to be on.
Pharmacist's mother Pharaoh's Delight won this prize when it was run at the Phoenix Park in 1989 and judged by Pharmacist's smooth two and a half length defeat of Bugatti Reef, with Polarie fourth, over the course and distance last month, it's clear that the family speed has been inherited.
After that Rochestown Stakes victory, Dermot Weld, who won this race in the late 70s with Kilijaro and Smokey Lady, predicted significant improvement for his filly and yesterday he declared: "We've been very pleased with her. There have been no hold ups since her last run and we expect a big run."
On the formbook, Pharmacist has it all to do against Access All Areas who is bidding to give John Mulhern a first Grop One winner on the flat. The Marble Hill winner ran a blinder in Royal Ascot's Coventry Stakes to finish third, after a less than clear passage, to Red Sea.
Considering he was beaten just two and a half lengths by the winner, Access All Areas can be judged an unlucky loser and a bare reading of the race indicates that Black Amber and Richard Hannon's Red Delerium are up against it here as they try and give Britain its sixth Heinz success in the 90's.
Black Amber, trying to give Neville Callaghan a second Heinz after Danehill Dancer in 1995, won the Papin by a length and a half and is clearly improving but on a line through Bertollini, fifth in the Coventry, he cannot finish in front of Access All Areas.
The other two cross-channel horses have been racing on the allweather and it will be a shock if either win while Tommy Stack's Curragh winner Fear And Greed may not be quite up to this yet. Walter Swinburn is an interesting choice of rider for Lavery, well beaten on his debut at the Curragh, but Bugatti Reef and the Queen Mary Stakes third Coralita look exposed.
In what may emerge as a dogfight between the colt Access All Areas and the filly Pharmacist, take the unexposed horse who has been pleasing her experienced connections at home and has the potential to follow in some illustrious family footseps.
Last year, Cretan Gift gave Wolverhampton based trainer Nick Littmoden a first ever Group win in the Phoenix Sprint and the seven-year-old attempts the double tomorrow.
