The Golden Rose has become one of the most exciting spring races on the calendar, and one which shapes the three-year-old season.
This year will be the eighth time it has been run as a Group 1, and of the previous seven winners, five of them were coming off a top-four finish in the Run To The Rose, and the other two won their lead-up race.
Winning form is always the best, with five last-start winners taking out the Golden Rose in that time. (Click to Tweet)
The market has identified four main chances, with the filly Omei Sword the current favourite.
Omei Sword displayed some talent as a two-year-old when running a close second in the Magic Night back in March, but returned a different class of filly in the Silver Shadow three weeks ago, putting in one of the most inspiring winning performances of the racing season so far.
Bred to be better over ground, there can be no doubt on her extending that brilliance to 1400m. From gate three she’ll be able to take a position behind the speed to give herself every chance.
Hong Kong’s dominant jockey in João Moreira takes the ride for Chris Waller.
Godolphin’s Astern and Divine Prophet from the Hawkes camp are seen to be the pick of the boys, coming off wins in the Run To The Rose and Up And Coming Stakes respectively.
Astern has won four of his five career starts, with the only miss coming when riding the speed from a wide gate in the Golden Slipper. His Run To The Rose win was full of merit carrying weight against his rivals under the conditions, and he presents as the consummate, talented professional.
El Divino led but weakened in that lead-up, the first time he tasted defeat, but he did dead-heat with Astern in the Kindergarten Stakes back in the autumn. He and stablemate Thronum are likely to set the early agenda, but Hugh Bowman on El Divino might be well advised to not fight for the lead and just take a sit.
Others from the Run to the Rose are Impending, Nikitas, Good Standing and Mediterranean.
Impending will have admirers on a drying track, but it would be hard to back him over his stablemate Astern.
Mediterranean doesn’t have much to recommend him apart from being from the Snowden yard, Nikitas hasn’t shown enough to win this sort of race, and Good Standing looks a cut below Group 1 level at this stage of his career.
Divine Prophet was stunning in his victory first up, jumping out of the ground late. He can put together the closing fractions, as evidenced both there and in the autumn when breaking his maiden against some smart types and following it up with a close third coming from last in the Group 1 Champagne Stakes.
Tommy Berry will drag him back from Barrier 10, and he’ll be smoking the pipe in the early stages, but no horse will be finishing harder.
Derryn was the horse that got nailed by Divine Prophet late in the Up and Coming Stakes, after seeming to draw away with Thronum to fight a two-horse war down the straight. Expect a quieter ride on him this time, and he can find his way into the money at a price.
Yankee Rose brings both star power and x-factor to the starting line-up, with plenty of intrigue surrounding her given she is first-up off an indifferent lead-up.
Her autumn campaign consisted of two starts – a first-up second in the Golden Slipper trying to pull off the impossible, followed by a put-down-your-glasses victory in the Group 1 Sires Produce.
She had been set for this first-up effort before running into a minor problem in her preparation a few weeks back, and had been trialling unimpressively. She had a jump-out with blinkers on last Sunday, finally impressing trainer David Vandyke and confirming her place in the field.
She’ll likely be making her run with Divine Prophet from back in the field, and it will be a sight to behold watching these two special talents trying to find the line first.
O’Reilly Cyrus, Chamalu, and (the terribly named) Oink are making up the numbers, but their owners gets to have a major Group 1 runner, and not everyone gets to claim that. The Oink owner will be rolling in it should they get up.
There looks to be an even tempo at minimum in this race and if every horse gets their chance we’ll be in for one of the races of the year. This feels like a Golden Rose we will look back on in time as one of the great editions.
Selections
1. Divine Prophet 2. Yankee Rose 3. Omei Sword 4. Astern
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