It is five years since Sea The Stars wound up his juvenile career with victory in the Juddmonte Beresford Stakes and there was a neat symmetry to how the great horse's daughter My Titania announced her own classic ambitions at the Curragh yesterday.
Aidan O'Brien's Geoffrey Chaucer was the one to win yesterday's Beresford but the sight of Christopher Tsui's yellow colours again being carried to big race success in the CL Weld Park Stakes was the evocative moment of the day.
Those colours were on board Sea The Stars as we swept all before him in 2009 and My Titania was a first Group winner for the Guineas-Derby-Arc hero in his still fledgling stallion career.
"This filly is precocious which quite a lot of his progeny aren't. They're more like him, falling out of the gate on their first stars, getting into bad positions and sauntering home; just like he was as a two year old, which you'd expect," said trainer John Oxx. "We have some of them and they show a lot of potential, and there's nothing wrong with her."
Quote for classics
My Titania was installed a 16 to 1 shot for next year's 1,000 Guineas and Oaks after a half length defeat of Chicago Girl and Oxx confirmed she will be entered for those races.
“She’s like her father in that she pulls up a bit in front. The other horse came wide too and Declan [McDonogh] said she didn’t know the other filly was there,” added Oxx.
“But she’s got great speed and should stay well. We’ll enter her in the Guineas and Oaks in March but she has a long way to go yet.”
Geoffrey Chaucer is 16 to 1 for next year's Derby after his defeat of stable-mate Oklahoma City in the Group Two feature and will line up next in Doncaster's Racing Post Trophy.
St Nicholas Abbey, also a son of Montjeu, did the double in 2009 and trainer Aidan O'Brien said: "He learned nothing in front the first day he ran so the plan was to hold him up today. He'll have learned a lot because he was still very green when he got there."
It was a 13th Beresford win for O’Brien, just one shy of Vincent O’Brien’s race record, and the champion trainer indicated that his Leger winner Leading Light will “probably” be supplemented into the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe later this week. His other Arc possibles are Camelot, Kingsbarns and Ruler Of The World.
O’Brien and his son Joseph also picked up the Loughbrown Stakes.
Impressive Emerald
Ballydoyle's one-eyed Eye Of The Storm relished his first step up to two miles and beat the gallant Missunited by three parts of a length.
Shining Emerald sluiced up by 16 lengths on testing ground at Listowel prior to yesterday’s Blenheim Stakes, however he proved he doesn’t mind it soft with a resounding three-length defeat of the odds-on Guerre.
Trainer Paul Deegan nominated the Group Three Killavullan Stakes next month as a target.
