ALL you need is love, love, LOVE is all you need – and you had better believe it!
Get ready for Beatles mania at York today as dual Classic heroine Love puts her huge reputation on the line in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks (3.15).
Aidan O’Brien’s fantastic filly who won the 1,000 Guineas and the Oaks, faces five rivals in the near mile-and-a-half contest won last year by brilliant Enable.
Of course it’s a shame we don’t get to see that head-to-head today but it will add to the Arc intrigue if the fab fillies meet for the first time at Longchamp in October.
Although I expect Love to win she will be kept up to her work by Jessica Harrington’s raider One Voice and the John Gosden pair Franconia and Frankly Darling.
The latter is surely better than her flop at Epsom behind the hot favourite in this event might have suggested.
That said, if Love is the superstar we all think she is then she has to win this and win it well to leave the Gosden camp with a few restless nights.
The Yorkshire Oaks is one of five races on ITV, and the action kicks off with a decent Group 2 in the Lowther for juvenile fillies over six furlongs.
There is a good chance a better HALA HALA HALA (1.45) will be seen here and that might be enough to get her into the frame at the very least.
My selection chased home Santosha at Ascot last time — but crucially she has had a wind operation since that decent performance. She’s a good each way bet here for Kevin Ryan with William Buick in the saddle.
A similar event follows, although this time it is a mega sales race.
No surprise to see DEVIOUS COMPANY (2.15) and Happy Romance dominate.
While the former drops down in distance the latter is going up.
I like the look of the Tom Dascombe runner who will have the help of Richard Kingscote — one of my very favourite riders.
Devious Company was a fine second to Battleground at Goodwood and might be too strong for this lot as they get close to home.
A tough handicap is next over a mile. SHELIR (2.45) is promising much but has been failing to deliver for David O’Meara and the excellent Sean Levey.
There is no doubt my hope is a very well weighted horse on some of his form, but there is a worry he just ‘doesn’t want it’. This will be run at a good pace which should help. If you look at his fifth in the Buckingham Palace, it’s decent form. He is worth chancing a few quid each-way.
And finally a Listed contest in memory of the great Sir Henry Cecil with the Galtres Stakes over 1m4f.
LADY G might just hit the spot here! She’s only had three runs for William Haggas and has got better with each of them. Last time the daughter of the Arc hero Golden Horn stepped up to this distance and did well to be second at Newbury.
Some might feel Sea of Faith is the first string for Haggas here, but Tom Marquand is on my hope and that is no bad thing.
Day One
NEVER in doubt. If ever a horse battered his rivals it was the beast Ghaiyyath in yesterday’s Juddmonte.
If Ghaiyyath was a school kid he’d be the classroom bully striking fear into the pupils at break time.
You have to feel for Magical. She gave it her all but didn’t want to get too close in case Ghaiyyath nicked her packed lunch.
Charlie Appleby’s star is a bruiser. He gallops his rivals into submission and has done it from a mile to a mile and a half.
If I was John Gosden right now I’d be afraid, very afraid, at the thought of Ghaiyyath turning up to face Enable at Longchamp in the Arc.
Johnny G will no doubt be hoping Ghaiyyath stays at home for the Champion Stakes instead.
