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Tuesday’s racing round-up brings news that top-class filly Porta Fortuna will race on at four…
Donnacha O'Brien has revealed his multiple Group 1 scorer Porta Fortuna will stay in training as a four-year-old. A winner of the Albany Stakes as a juvenile in 2023, Porta Fortuna went from strength-to-strength as a three-year-old, adding to her Royal Ascot tally with victory in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes before further top-level successes in the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket and the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown. The daughter of Caravaggio was never able to get competitive after a troubled passage in the Breeders' Cup Mile at Del Mar earlier in the month, but she will be back to fight another day in 2025.
Kia Joorabchian has submitted a bid for Sir Michael Stoute's Freemason Lodge stables in Newmarket in an attempt to expand AMO Racing. "We have been looking actively both in the Lambourn and Newmarket area for growth in both stud and training ventures," Joorabchian said on the Nick Luck Daily podcast. "We've made an offer and that needs to get accepted. I don't want to jump the gun. We are in the mix and if we don't get it, we'll continue looking." Sir Michael Stoute has been based at Freemason Lodge in Newmarket since the 1970s but will depart from the property after announcing his retirement from the training ranks.
Kim Bailey will add long-time assistant Mat Nicholls to his training license at some point in the not-so-distant future. Nicholls, who has worked at Bailey's for the past sixteen years, will join the license at Thorndale Farm after Bailey passed the career milestone of 1,500 winners when Chianti Classico scored at Ascot late last month.
Chantilly's all-weather card produced two exciting debut winners. Uther, a half-brother to this year's Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris hero and Prix du Jockey Club third Sosie, quickened up in smart style to make a winning start for owners Wertheimer & Frere, while Mandanaba gave her multiple Group 1 winning dam Mandesha her first notable performer as a broodmare when she bolted by six lengths for trainer Francis-Henri Graffard, jockey Mickael Barzalona and owner Princess Zahra Aga Khan.
