Emiyna out to end Oxx’s 1,000 Guineas drought
Having blitzed flat racing’s greatest prizes with Sea The Stars just two short years ago, he assuredly accepts that a fallow period was due in the wake of that breathtaking season.
That is not to say, of course, that he likes it that way – far from it. He is simply realistic enough to know that a beast such as Sea The Stars is very much a once-in-a-lifetime gig. The old ‘you’ll never see his like again’ adage is something he’s gotten used to in the 32 years he has been training.
Everything about this extraordinary man is modest and his attitude to the post-Sea The Stars era at his Currabeg yard emphasises the fact. “That’s the way it is for us. You’re never going to have another horse like that; no trainer will have two of those in a lifetime, so it is back to normal. It is not something we are having any difficulty with at all,” he laughs. “That’s just the way it is in flat racing; you keep the star in your yard for years when you have a jumper, but it’s not the way it works for us.”
That being the case, it might be that he is somewhat nonplussed by the fact his lightly raced filly Emiyna is among those at head of the betting markets for Sunday’s Irish 1,000 Guineas – up there with the legions of blue-bloods from Ballydoyle – but not so. Racing holds few surprises for him and what’s happening in the betting market is of little concern; his only interest is getting the best out of the horses in his charge.
He does like Emiyna though and says that when she won the Athasi Stakes at the Curragh earlier this month to score her second win this year he was delighted with her.
“She showed a really good turn of foot in her last outing,” he says, adding: “She is currently rated 107 or so and she has to improve on that to have a winning chance, but she had gone on well from race to race. She is a nice filly and we’re hopeful there is further improvement in her. She ran well on good to firm ground the last day, but should it turn a little soft I don’t think that will upset her. She is good on a range of ground; she can deal with that.”
Oxx’s second runner in the race is History Note, a filly by former stable star Azamour who won the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (run at Newbury) in 2005 and the Prince of Wales Stakes at York (Royal Ascot at York) the same year and who the trainer feels is still maturing.
“She is a May 21 foal so she only turns three just before the Guineas. She had an unlucky run at Leopardstown, but finished very well (when third behind Ballydoyle’s Empowering). We have not run her since because she is still so young; we have tried to keep her fresh and allow the clock tick down a little bit to allow her mature and grow up.
“She is in really good shape at the moment, but again she is only rated in the high 90’s and will have to improve 15 pounds to be there or thereabouts. But I think there is improvement in her and she’ll go some of the way at least.”
It is fair to say that the Irish 1,000 Guineas does have a special meaning for John Oxx, particularly as his great filly Ridgewood Pearl was his only winner in it back in 1995. It is, he says, a race in which he does not often have runners, but this year has two and his logic tells him both have a chance.
“Ridgewood Pearl was in a different league from most fillies and I don’t know if I will ever have another one as good. The thing is though that most Guineas winners are not as good as she was, so you don’t have to come up with one quite that good to win it,” he maintains.
He also runs Zabarajad in tomorrow’s 2,000 Guineas and he thinks a lot of the Invincible Spirit colt. “He was a nice two-year-old and we ran him on Derby weekend last year. Then he pulled out again at the Curragh on Oaks weekend where he ran a good third behind Pathfork. We actually thought he was better than that, but he had showed promise. He did have a couple of small setbacks after that and we just didn’t get him back on the track last year. But at least he got a bit of experience and we really were hoping he’d turn into a decent horse this year.
“The ground was too soft for him this spring and he didn’t like that as he seems to be very ground dependent and needs good, fast ground. The dry spell in April allowed us to run him in the Tetrarch at the Curragh and he ran very well that day (second by a head to Aidan O’Brien’s Imperial Rome), so he now has a rating of 105 from that first run on what was only his third ever start. Obviously he needs to improve by quite a bit in comparison to the top rated horses in the race. Roderic O’Connor is rated 119 but did not run to that mark at Newmarket in the English 2,000 Guineas, so that means our fellow has to improve by 10 pounds to be in the shake-up. We are hoping he can progress again and have a chance of being in the first four.”
He says the supplementing of Richard Hannon’s Dubawi Gold for the race was not exactly unexpected. “Yes, we felt Dubawi Gold would be supplemented because you really would expect a placed horse at Newmarket to turn up if fit and well. It is interesting because he did not go into that race with a high rating but he came out of it with an enhanced reputation finishing second to Frankel. Only time will tell us what sort of a race that was if you discount the performance of the winner; sometimes you don’t actually know what these races mean until later in the year and other times you don’t really know until the following year when they have a four-year-old career and everything becomes clearer. It’s guesswork at the moment, but Dubawi Gold probably deserves favouritism and my fellow is about 7/1 and might even be longer odds considering he’s down the ratings a bit. The bottom line is that Zabarajad has to improve, but realistically he has a place chance.”
The ‘noughties’ was a fantastic decade for Oxx and his team at the Currabeg yard with the likes of Sindaar, Alamshar and Azamour each nailing a raft of Group 1 successes for the stable before Sea The Stars came along in ’09 and pretty much won everything there was to win that season from the English 2,000 Guineas to the Prix De l’Arc De Triomphe, taking in the Epsom Derby for good measure. However, the trainer does not discount being able to recreate that golden era for the yard – but with certain conditions.
“Yes,” he agrees, “that was a very good period for us. Our good horses before that were mainly fillies, but then we had these four terrific colts and we were lucky to have them. It has been a great period and while we have not had a star horse every year, we have been lucky to have good ones come along every now and then. We are not like Ballydoyle with those sort of numbers of promising horses, but you are very grateful when you get a good one from time to time because there is no guarantee you’ll get them at all. You have no control over it and when horses come through your gate you just don’t know what they will be like or if there will be anything that good among them. They have to have the ability – you can’t give it to them. You are thankful when they arrive.”
Part of the key to John Oxx’s success has been his relationship with the Aga Khan and his massive breeding operation and that is something he is keen to continue, even if it does not necessarily guarantee winners.
“Some of his best ones in recent years have been in France,” he maintains, “but you’re always hoping there will be something good there every year. Some years there is and some there isn’t, but the thing is that there is great potential there all the time and good horses will emerge. You just hope you get you’re share of them and then do them justice when you do get them. But they can be in France just as easily as they can be here.”
When they are in Ireland, however, they are invariably in the hands of this quiet, unflustered and bespectacled man who has the genius touch when it comes to making them winners.
