Hydrangea Takes One Thousand Guineas Trial

With the classics for 3-year-olds right around the corner, tracks across Europe and the British Isles are carding their prep races. Leopardstown in Ireland sprinkled its April 8 card with the Ballylinch Stud One Thousand Guineas Trial Stakes (G3), the listed Leopardstown Two Thousand Guineas Trial Stakes, and the P.W. McGrath Memorial Ballysax Stakes (G3) for those sophomores that might favor longer distances.

Unsurprisingly, offspring of Galileo belonging to the Coolmore and Ballydoyle connections finished on top. 

Seven answered the call for the one-mile Two Thousand Guineas Trial. Favoritism fell on the Aidan O'Brien-trained Orderofthegarter, making his second start in two weeks after breaking his maiden at Naas March 26. Clad in the purple and white silks of the Coolmore consortium, Seamie Heffernan immediately took his charge to the lead and let the rest of the field battle it out for the minor placings.

Two lengths clear at the halfway point, the bay son of Galileo—Kitty Kiernan, by Pivotal, extended his lead to win by 3 3/4 lengths in 1:41.06 over the yielding turf. Coolmore stablemate Taj Mahal, another O'Brien-trained son of Galileo, closed well to finish second under Ryan Moore. Godolphin's Zorion, an English-bred son of Smart Strike, pressed the pace and held on for third by a neck over Moyglare Stud's Firey Speech (Street Cry).

Four Galileo fillies took on seven other sophomore fillies in the seven-furlong One Thousand Guineas Trial. As it had been in the earlier Guineas Trial, so it was here, as Galileo sired the Coolmore/Ballydoyle exacta. Hydrangea, piloted by Padraig Beggy for O'Brien, pressed the pace of Connacht Girl (Dark Angel) until the field entered the straight, when she took over the lead and held the challengers off to win in 1:28.43. Winter, who chased the leaders through the early stages, came on to finish second, a head short and three-quarters better than the Aga Khan's Rehana (Dark Angel). 

Bred by the Beauty Is Truth Syndicate, Hydrangea is out of the Pivotal mare Beauty Is Truth, who won a pair of French group races for Richard Strauss and trainer Robert Collet. 

Galileo picked up two new stakes winners with his Guineas trial victors, bringing his career total to 256 stakes winners. Both also are out of Pivotal (Polar Falcon) mares. Galileo is a son of Sadler's Wells whose dam Fairy Bridge is a half sister to Nureyev, the grandsire of Pivotal through Claiborne Farm's blue hen mare Special.

Crossing Pivotal mares to Galileo has proved quite successful. From 29 foals of racing age have come seven black-type stakes winners (24.1%). As three of the 29 foals are unraced 2-year-olds, the percentage to starters (21) increases to 33.3%. These seven include group 1 winners Rhododendron and The United States.

The O'Briens kept the Ballysax Stakes in the family, as Joseph O'Brien and his charge Rekindling, ridden by Wayne Lordon, won a half-length over his father's Douglas MacArthur (Galileo) and favored Yucatan (Galileo), who finished another half-length third. The time for the 10-furlong stakes was 2:08.88.

Bred in England by the Pocock family and owned by Lloyd Williams, Rekindling is a bay son of the late High Chaparral out of the Salse mare Sitara and a full brother to group 3 winner Golden Sword. Rekindling became the fourth stakes winner on the day for his sire, who died in 2014 at age 15, following Charmont (G1 in New Zealand), Mangaroa Flo Jo (in New Zealand), and Whispered Secret (in Australia).