Whirl marked herself down as one of the best three-year-old fillies in training with an emphatic five-length victory in the G1 Qatar Nassau Stakes.
Ryan Moore was keen to dictate matters on Aidan O’Brien’s G1 Pretty Polly Stakes winner, sending the daughter of Wootton Bassett to the front from the flag start.
After bringing the field over to the stands’ rail, her four rivals had no answers as Whirl wound it up from the three-furlong pole, with the 6/5 favourite drawing clear to win by five lengths.
G1 Coronation Stakes winner Cercene (11/1) finished second on her first start over 10 furlongs, with G1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes third See The Fire (5/2) filling the same position here.
O’Brien said: “Well done to everybody for getting the race on and keeping it going. Whirl is an amazing filly. I am delighted for the lads. She is a homebred by Wootton Bassett, she gets a mile and a half, handles all types of ground, and Ryan gave her a lovely ride. He was going to go forward on her and no one else in their right mind was going to want to make the running on that ground in these conditions, so I would say everyone was waiting on Ryan to go.
“She is just a very, very good filly. Depending on what the lads want to do, she has all the options. She could go to York or she could miss York and go to France for the Arc trials and the Arc. She is unusual as she has so many options and is so straightforward.”
Comparing Whirl to her G1 Oaks conqueror Minnie Hauk, O’Brien said: “Minnie Hauk is a great traveller, and you probably won’t see the best of Minnie Hauk until she goes up in class against older horses where the tempo is very strong. What Minnie Hauk does is she is a very high cruiser, and we haven’t seen that cruise in her races yet, but we have seen it at home.
“Even when she followed this filly at Epsom, she was finding it very easy to follow her, but you don’t know what this filly is either and you probably won’t know until they meet again. We saw what happened at Epsom when Ryan was very confident that he was going to get her, but she just kept coming with him. They are obviously very good fillies and when they do come together, we will find out.”
Moore said: “Whirl just keeps doing what she says she is going to do. She is very uncomplicated. She has loads of ability, stays well, handles quick ground, handles slow ground. Aidan called her ‘a racing machine’ the last day. He keeps getting these horses to do different things and this filly keeps progressing.
“It is a shame it was the spectacle it was, but she won it very well. She has won two Group One races now against the girls. She will have to step up again against the boys, but she is progressing and Aidan’s horses just keep turning up every time.”
Cercene’s trainer Joseph Murphy said: “’We are delighted with the filly. Gary [Carroll] said she was wheel-spinning in the ground. He said on better ground she would have run a great race. We know she needs good to good to firm ground. It was her courage which got her through. No words can describe how genuine and tough she is. She got the trip no problem, but I think we will go back to a mile for the Matron Stakes and hope the ground is good.”
Gary Carroll added: “Brilliant run from my filly. The ground was probably gone for her. She definitely got the trip but, from four furlongs out, she was just wheel-spinning. She is just so tough, she’s dug it out and it was great to get second. I was pony racing, so I’m used to them [flag starts]; it was actually no problem, a five-runner race, everyone knew where they wanted to be, it was quite smooth.”
Andrew Balding said of See The Fire: “Conditions weren’t ideal obviously but who is to say we would have beaten the winner anyway? See The Fire didn’t have a terribly hard time and seemed OK afterwards. We will kick on to York for the International Stakes.”
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