Darley Yorkshire Oaks report | Alpinista fights off Tuesday at York

The Frankel mare has won top-level races in Germany and France on her previous four starts and she made it five in a row at York where she dug deep to see off the final challenge of Aidan O'Brien's Tuesday.

A furlong out the Cazoo Oaks heroine got to the winner's quarters but it was the five-year-old who got the better of the three-year-old under Luke Morris as she pulled out more to win by a length.

La Petite Coco ran well for a long way from the front end under Billy Lee but she had to settle for third.

A winner at Saint-Cloud prior to this win on the Knavesmire, all roads now lead back to France for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, with Betfair and Paddy Power both leaving Alpinista unchanged in the market at 8/1.

Tremendous

“They (Group Ones) are all great, but they hard to come by. For a smallish stable, every five or six years you get good ones come along and it’s tremendous when it happens,” said Prescott. “We trained this one’s dam, grand-dam and great grand-dam. It’s been a marvellous family.

“The original intention was to go Coronation (Cup) and King George, but she wouldn’t come (in her coat) in time for the Coronation, so it then became Saint-Cloud (for the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud) and then either here or the Vermeille.

“But Miss (Kirsten) Rausing (owner-breeder) was very keen to come here as she (Alpinista) hadn’t won a Group One in England. She has really done it all now, she’s won Group Ones in England, France and Germany.”

He went on: “That (Arc) has always been her aim. Last year we rather patted ourselves on the back for being so clever winning three Group Ones in Germany, then when the one behind us (Torquator Tasso) came and won the Arc we rather felt we might not have been as clever as we thought we were!

“When she stayed in training this year that was always the aim.”

Parisian dream

Like all involved at Heath House Stables, Morris is looking forward to the first Sunday in October.

He said: “Since she has been on better ground this year she has looked like a filly with more class so we can dream about Paris now.

“Generally the Yorkshire Oaks can look a little top heavy with a superstar of Aidan’s, but I thought it had a lot of depth and she had to give 9lb away to the second. I thought it was a great performance. It’s great she’s been able to show in Britain what she is capable of.

“It’s a massive team effort – the team at Heath House and Lanwades Stud. I’m just the lucky one that gets to sit on her a couple of times a year.”

O’Brien taking plenty of positives

Aidan O’Brien insisted he was “happy enough” as Cazoo Oaks heroine Tuesday was a gallant runner-up to Alpinista in the Darley Yorkshire Oaks.

Tuesday was having her first outing since finishing fourth to Westover in the Irish Derby at the Curragh in June.

Under Ryan Moore, Tuesday battled on well after the mile-and-a-half Group One contest developed into something of a sprint.

Though she was beaten a length by the Sir Mark Prescott-trained Alpinista, who was earning a fifth Group One success – and a first on home soil – O’Brien was satisfied, insisting she will have at least one more outing this term.

“She will go on (Irish) Champions weekend (September 10 and 11) somewhere, whether she will will stay here, or whether she will go to Ireland or whether she will go to France or whatever. Hopefully she will go somewhere.

“We were happy enough with that. That was her first run back and she ran a very good race.

“It was her first run back and she ran very well, and I don’t think she was losing any ground going to the line, was she? I didn’t think she was.

“She has come back to form after the Curragh. She was a bit hot before the race, but I didn’t mind that – I was hot myself! She is in the mix for the Arc and other races.”

The Paddy Twomey-trained La Petite Coco, who took the Group One Pretty Polly at the Curragh on her first start of the season, finished a further length-and-three-quarters further back in third under Billy Lee.

La Petite Coco, who runs in the ownership of Barry Irwin’s Team Valor operation, may have been closer had the ground ridden easier.

Irwin explained: “She ran well, but she is not the type to set the pace, and nobody else wanted to, so that was somewhat less than ideal.

“I think the difference between her finishing right there with the first two and where she did finish was somewhat quality, because they are two fantastic horses for sure, but our filly needs the soft.

“That ground, it was a good cover on top, but underneath it was firm and she can’t lay her body down like that. On soft turf, not that the others would not have run as well, I think we would have been able to hang with them better if the ground was softer.

“The fact that the race turned into something of a sprint and that she wasn’t going to let herself down as well, played against her somewhat.”

Plans are fluid for the four-year-old daughter of Ruler Of The World, although a potential second round with Alpinista in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is not in the offing.

Irwin said: “Paddy is talking about the Prix de l’Opera – we are going to forget about the Arc this year – or the British Champion Stakes. That is what he is looking at. We need to wait for the ground to soften.

“When she won at the Curragh it was like a miracle, where it rained just before the race and she got her ground. Even though she wasn’t really totally fit, she was able to win anyway, because of the ground.”

Timeform View: David Cleary

It was always going to be well-nigh impossible for the Darley Yorkshire Oaks to reach the heights of the previous day's Group 1, the Juddmonte International, but the fillies and mares that lined up served up a cracking contest and the race went to a thoroughly deserving winner in the shape of Alpinista.

Four of the seven had won Group 1 events this summer, Alpinista bidding for a fifth successive win at the highest level, following her reappearance victory in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. Off a modest gallop that picked up only in the straight, she had to show the plucky qualities that have made her so hard to beat, knuckling down well to overhaul the pace-making La Petite Coco, always finding enough to hold off the challenge of the Oaks winner Tuesday.

In form terms, Alpinista had the best chance coming into the race and it's unlikely she had to improve, the performance probably a little below the (high) recent standard of the race, with Enable (twice), Love and Sea of Class among the winners. Alpinista's options now would be a crack at the Arc de Triomphe or a trip to Ascot for the Fillies& Mares. She deserves a tilt at the former and the race might well suit her, even if her form at the moment is a bit shy of what would normally be required.

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