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Abdullah Elects to Keep Midday in Training
26/11/10
The announcement that leading older filly Midday is to be kept in training next season has been warmly welcomed by racing fans across Britain and beyond and continues the pleasing trend of some of the best horses of 2010 coming back to do battle once again in the spring, writes Elliot Slater.
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Prince Khaled Abdullah had already confirmed, (after his abortive trip to the Breeders’ Cup), that his Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Workforce would come back for a crack at the major middle-distance targets in 2011, and he is to be applauded for making a similar decision with regard to Midday, a high-class performer who only just failed to land her second Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf at Churchill Downs a fortnight ago when beaten a neck by 33/1 winner Shared Account. This was a shock to most irish horse racing tips it has to be said!
That Stateside effort came at the end of a long but fruitful European campaign that saw the daughter of Oasis Dream rattle up a hattrick of Group 1 successes, beginning by beating Stacellita in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood, then scoring a three-length victory over the dual Oaks heroine Snow Fairy in the Darley Yorkshire Oaks, before going to Paris and beating Plumania in the Prix Vermeille.
With the Ballydoyle team planning to return Fame And Glory and Cape Blanco to action next year, (amongst a number of their top performers of the past season), the outstanding Goldikova set to grace the turf once again, and a number of other high profile horses appearing set to come back for more next year, the trend of packing Group 1 winners off to stud at the first opportunity seems to have been happily reversed - for the time being at least.
There’s absolutely no doubt according to most racing tips that many horses only really reach the height of their powers at four or even five years old, and a successful time by the 2010 standard bearers in the year to come could well set a new benchmark for keeping older horses in training.
