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The triple Group 1 winner, Ervedya, is part of a top quality international field for the Kingdom Of Bahrain Sun Chariot Stakes - the sixth of seven races in the Mile category of the QIPCO British Champions Series - at Newmarket’s Rowley Mile Racecourse on Saturday (1st October).
This £250,000 Group 1 event has long been a magnet for some of the world’s top fillies and mares and over half of Saturday’s nine-strong field hails from outside Britain.
The biggest overseas contingent comes from France, the country responsible for five of the last seven winners of this illustrious prize. Its three-pronged assault is headed by Ervedya, the heroine in 2015 of both the French 1000 Guineas and the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Trained by Jean-Claude Rouget, the runaway leader in the race for the French Trainers Championship race, she has failed to get her head in front in three starts this term but was a fine third on her latest outing, in the Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois at Deauville in August.
The other French raiders are Francis-Henri Graffard’s Volta, a Group 2 scorer in June who has since finished third in the Group 1 Prix de Diane and runner-up in the Group 1 Prix Rothschild, and the Freddy Head-trained Siyoushake, fresh from her inaugural Pattern Race success in the Group 3 Prix Quincey five weeks ago.
The foreign challenge is completed by Aidan O’Brien’s Alice Springs, who added to her triumph in the Group 1 Tattersalls 250th Year Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket’s Moët & Chandon July Festival with an easy victory in the Group 1 Matron Stakes in Ireland earlier this month, and the Alec Laird-trained champion South African racemare, Smart Call, smooth winner of the prestigious Group 1 J & B Met in Cape Town on her latest start, back in January.
The four-strong home team is led by the fourth individual Group 1 scorer in the field, Arabian Queen, one of only two horses ever to beat last year’s brilliant Derby winner, Golden Horn, and the Falmouth Stakes third, Always Smile.
Georges Rimaud, racing manager to the Aga Khan, owner-breeder of Ervedya, said:
“Jean-Claude [Rouget] is very pleased with Ervedya and says that her condition has improved since the Prix Jacques Le Marois. He seems quite confident even though he knows that these type of races are always tough to win.”
“The Marois was a nice performance, you couldn’t be disappointed with that as she hadn’t run for two months and was taking on the colts.”
“She is fit and ready for Saturday and won’t mind the fast ground. The undulating course will be different for her but she is very easy to ride so I don’t think that will affect her - her jockey, Christophe Lemaire, has won on the Rowley Mile a number of times, including in this race.”
“She is an important filly for us, a Classic winner, and this will be her last season of racing. We will be guided by her performance on Saturday, but there are a few international races that she could go on to afterwards.”
