All You Need is Love: Galileo Filly Romps in Epsom Oaks

In one of his most famous terse responses to a post-race question, Ryan Moore declared "it's not the Derby" when asked how he felt about winning the Investec Oaks (G1) at Epsom Downs. 

If he still held that view going into the July 4 fillies' classic, it was easy to sense afterwards that his opinion this year could not have been any more different. Love had conquered.

Those unable to attend Epsom were robbed of witnessing in person an outstanding performance from a filly who is starting to make this truncated 2020 season her own. A summer of Love is far from being out of the question based on what has happened so far.

As the two pacemakers tore off across the deserted downs, Moore bided his time on the 11-10 favorite. However, as the pack closed in after the fillies had navigated Tattenham Corner, Love was ominously poised to strike.

Nudged past her stablemate Ennistymon to lead with a quarter of a mile to go, Love relentlessly powered on, and on, and on en route to a nine-length win. Such was her dominance over her opposition, Moore was perhaps afforded time to ponder just what it meant to win the Oaks in such a fashion on a filly who had swatted aside her rivals in the QIPCO One Thousand Guineas (G1) a month ago.

"She was exceptional today," he said. "You never expect to win the Oaks like that. I'm not sure how far she won but it felt like a long way to me. She was exceptional. Hopefully she'll be one to look forward to and she'll be a threat for anything.

"For me, she took another step forward (from the Guineas). She loved the trip and for me her best furlong was her last furlong. She's got a great temperament and is a lovely mover and, for me, she couldn't have been any more impressive."

Frankie Dettori blamed the sloping camber of Epsom for the defeat of Frankly Darling in the Oaks, the Ribblesdale Stakes (G2) winner and second choice finishing third at 7-4 after never looking comfortable in the home straight.

Love became the 49th filly to complete the One Thousand Guineas and Oaks double, a feat Moore and winning trainer Aidan O'Brien achieved with the brilliant Minding in 2016. There was a yawning gap of nine lengths back to stablemate Ennistymon in second, although Sun Princess's 12-length record winning distance would have been threatened if Moore had not gone easy in the closing stages.

It was an eighth Oaks winner for O'Brien—and his fifth in the last nine years—but his enthusiasm overflowed like rarely before for Love.

"She's very special," O'Brien said from his office at Ballydoyle. "It's hard to say that you would ever have a filly better than that. We saw what she did in the Guineas and she doubled it today, and it's only her second run of the year. It's amazing really. 

"We always thought she'd get a mile and a quarter well and she's by Galileo and has a lovely long stride and sticks her head out and really tries. We were always hopeful the extra distance in the Oaks was going to improve her and Ryan gave her a lovely ride. 

"She was working incredibly well and her last few canters through the week were incredible."

The Juddmonte Irish Oaks (G1) in two weeks is likely to be the next stop for Love, while Paddy Power and Betfair slashed the filly to 5-1 (from 20) for the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (G1), just behind 9-2 favorite Enable, who gets her 2020 campaign underway in Sunday's Coral-Eclipse Stakes (G1) at Sandown.

What appears less likely for Love is an attempt to emulate 1985 fillies' Triple Crown winner Oh So Sharp by having a crack at the St. Leger (G1), with O'Brien unsure whether Doncaster and Longchamp would be in the filly's best interests.

"The Lads will decide her next race but the Irish Oaks is a possibility," O'Brien said. "As for the Arc, you'd have to think about that in the autumn and we know what 3-year-old fillies do in the Arc, so we'd definitely have to think about it. 

"The Lads will decide (about the St. Leger) but she has an awful lot of class. It's possible but we have to see if it's the right thing to do. I think the Leger comes three weeks or a month before the Arc, so if she's going for that is it too tough for a filly to take in that race and then go for the Arc?"

Wherever she heads next, there will be plenty of people looking for Love through the rest of this year.

Galileo Mating With Cinderella Mare Produces Love

The Oaks demonstrated yet again how the breeding industry revolves around Galileo. Coolmore's phenomenal sire supplied his fourth winner of the Epsom classic as One Thousand Guineas heroine Love stormed to a nine-length victory.

Love is the second Galileo filly to complete this particular classic double, after Minding four years ago.

Minding was the sire's second Oaks winner, following Was in 2012 and preceding Forever Together in 2018.

It was a one-two for Coolmore's phenomenal sire at Epsom this year, too, as Love's stablemate Ennistymon finished second.

Love, one of Galileo's world record haul of 85 group/grade 1 winners, was bred by her owners the Coolmore partners and is the eighth foal out of Pikaboo. It has been something of a Cinderella story for the dam, who was plucked by Coolmore from relative obscurity after she had demonstrated she was a talented producer with just the right sire and grandsire who suit Galileo down to the ground.

Pikaboo, a daughter of Pivotal and the winning Danehill mare Gleam of Light, was bred by Paul Venner's Petches Farm and was originally a 41,000 guineas (US$74,115) foal purchase by Rathmore Stud before being resold as a yearling for 85,000 guineas ($159,071) to John Gosden.

She showed little ability racing for Gosden while carrying the colors of Princess Haya of Jordan, and changed hands twice more to ultimately retire with a lowly peak Racing Post Rating of 58 at the end of her 4-year-old season, with Tally-Ho Stud paying 30,000 guineas ($64,815) at Tattersalls December.

The mare's first three foals were bred by Lilac Bloodstock and Redmyre Bloodstock, all by inexpensive Tweenhills Stud stallions of the time, and the third of those, the Lucky Story filly Lucky Kristale struck in the Duchess of Cambridge Cherry Hinton Stakes (G2) and Connolly's Red Mills Lowther Stakes (G2).

Unfortunately for Lucky Kristale's breeders, they had sold Pikaboo in December before Lucky Kristale's stellar 2-year-old season—with her very first owner, Paul Venner, having taken back custody of the mare at a cost of 50,000 guineas ($84,520).

And so it was Venner who was the beneficiary when Coolmore came knocking with a private offer to buy the mare, the Irish superpower's motivation no doubt being because she had upgraded a mating with Lucky Story to produce Lucky Kristale, and also because her sire Pivotal and damsire Danehill click so well with Galileo.

Pikaboo has been mated with Galileo every year since entering Coolmore ownership, and all three runners bred on the cross have been Pattern winners—the 2015-foaled Flattering, who won the Munster Oaks (G3); the 4-year-old filly Peach Tree, who took the Irish Stallion Farms E.B.F. Stanerra Stakes (G3); and now Love.

Pikaboo's page has not only been improved by her descendants. Since she was foaled in 2003 her year-younger three-parts brother Arabian Gleam landed the Victor Chandler Challenge Stakes (G2) and two editions of the Park Stakes (G2), and another three-parts brother, Kimberella, struck twice in the listed Queensferry Stakes.

Pikaboo's older half sister Light Quest became the dam of French stakes winners Skia and Tropaios, and her younger half sister Cute has produced this season's Windsor listed scorer Pogo.

It has been a magnificent return to form for a family that had already produced a dual classic winner before the emergence of Love.

Pikaboo's materal granddam Gold Runner is a Runnett half sister to Don't Forget Me, sent out by Richard Hannon Sr. to win both the General Accident Two Thousand Guineas (G1) at Newmarket and the Airlie Coolmore Irish Two Thousand Guineas (G1) at the Curragh in 1987.