Wednesday 29th September 2010
Hooray's G1 date
HOORAY has given her connections plenty to cheer about this season and Sir Mark Prescott’s charge will receive her biggest ovation yet if she wins the Group 1 Adnams Cheveley Park Stakes (2.30pm) at Newmarket on Friday, 1st October.
Cheveley Park Stud’s home-bred Invincible Spirit two-year-old lines up in the season’s premier six-furlong race for juvenile fillies having annexed the Group 2 Jaguar Cars Lowther Stakes and the Group 3 totepool Sirenia Stakes on her last two starts, both of which came over the same distance.
Hooray is one of 11 fillies declared for the prestigious contest, which last year went to subsequent 1000 Guineas and Poule d’Essai des Pouliches heroine Special Duty.
Chris Richardson, Cheveley Park Stud’s managing director, revealed today: “Hooray has been a very progressive filly all through the season and we hope she continues to surprise us.
“At this point in time, we are still intending to run but the forecast is a concern. She’s not the same filly on soft ground.
“If she were not to run there are other options and I suppose the Rockfel Stakes (at Newmarket on Champions’ Day) could be one of those. At this stage we will take it that she will have a go on Friday.”
Two of the past three winners of the Adnams Cheveley Park Stakes have gone on to Classic success in the 1000 Guineas at the Rowley Mile the following May, with Natagora (2007 Cheveley Park Stakes/2008 1000 Guineas) preceding Special Duty. Richardson hopes Hooray can make the necessary progress to join that illustrious duo in completing the double.
He continued: “From the stud’s point of view, I would like to think Hooray will be a Guineas filly and we would have to consider it, but we will have to see how she progresses over the winter. She’s not the most robust filly, so she would need to develop physically to be at that level in May, but we will let Sir Mark and his team figure that out in the spring.”
