Australia shows grit and grace to land lucrative Juddmonte at York
AUSTRALIA is likely to be aimed at next month’s Irish Champion Stakes after the dual Derby winner underlined his class by claiming the Juddmonte International Stakes at York yesterday.
The odds-on favourite was made to work under jockey Joseph O’Brien on this drop back to 10 furlongs, but finished strongly to beat The Grey Gatsby by two lengths, followed by Telescope and Mukhadram.
It earned Australia’s owners a £450,000 prize and delighted trainer Aidan O’Brien, father of the winning rider.
“We’re delighted. I couldn’t be happier,” he said. “The impressive thing about this horse is that he has a lot of speed, he travels very strong. Joseph nursed him down the straight. The lads will decide what’s next, but we had in our head to come here and then Leopardstown [for the Irish Champion Stakes on 13 September] if everything went well.”
O’Brien senior said he was happy for his jockey son to drop to his minimum weight of under nine stone for the big occasion.
“I can’t tell you the massive part Joseph plays,” he added. “He can do 8st 12lb but we don’t like him doing it. We’re quite happy for him to put overweight up when he does. On the big days we want Joseph to be on and this is one of them.”
The Grey Gatsby trainer Kevin Ryan called Australia, the son of Galileo and Ouija Board, “a fabulous horse” but praised his own, adding: “We’ve no excuses. The way he’s finished it looks like he’ll get a mile and a half, which opens up plenty of options, but we’ve no plans at this stage.”