It is six years since Aidan O’Brien last achieved the significant feat of winning the British trainers’ championship from his Ballydoyle stable in County Tipperary and his ninth-place finish in the table last season was his poorest showing for many years. He shows every sign of making a serious run at a seventh title in 2023, however, and Paddington, a colt who started the season in handicaps, could yet prove to be O’Brien’s trump card among a strong team of three-year-old colts.
Paddington was, in hindsight, one of the bets of the century off a mark of 97 at Naas in late March, and he extended his unbeaten campaign this season to five races with a battling success in the Eclipse Stakes his third Group One win in a row.
It was also, in form terms, yet another step forward, as Paddington held off the four-year-old Emily Upjohn, a Group One winner herself last time out, by half a length in the season’s first major clash of the generations, less than three weeks after his emphatic success in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Worcester
2.05 Chief Black Robe
2.35 Topofthecotswolds
3.10 Thirtyfour Thirty
3.45 Ike Sport
4.15 My Poem
4.50 Karavomylos
5.25 Jack The Farmer
Ayr
2.20 Dark Encounter
2.55 Broken Spear
3.30 Berry Edge
4.05 Alpine Stroll (nap)
4.40 Judgment Call (nb)
5.15 Caribbean Sunset
Chepstow
5.20 Liangel Hope
5.55 Hadrian’s Wall
6.30 Gladly Ever After
7.00 Kyber Crystal
7.35 Autumnal Breeze
8.10 Zillion
8.40 Miss Sligo
Ripon
6.15 Geologist
6.50 Kathab
7.20 Saisons D’Or
7.55 Oh So Charming
8.30 Churchella
9.00 Mrs Trump
Emily Upjohn was a high-class opponent for Paddington on his first start against older horses, and also his first race beyond a mile, but after Ryan Moore sent the 8-11 favourite into the lead – and unknown territory – two furlongs out, he stayed on strongly and always looked to have the measure of John Gosden’s filly. Paddington was half a length in front of her at the line, with another six back to the third, West Wind Blows.
Moore suggested afterwards that a four-runner race played out in the middle of the track had not played to Paddington’s strengths.
“It went to plan, but I don’t think we saw the best of my horse either,” he said. “He brought me there very comfortably and then I felt a bit vulnerable in the middle of the track and exposed. It was like I was there waiting, and a very good filly came running at him.
“He has got an awful lot of pace and gears – he’s all class really. For Aidan to freshen him up [after Ascot] and bring him here shows he is a tough horse.”
There are echoes of horses like Giant’s Causeway, the Eclipse winner in 2000, and Rock Of Gibraltar in the metronomic way that Paddington has started to collect Group One wins, and even O’Brien has been taken slightly aback by his colt’s appetite for racing and improvement from one start to the next.
“The plan after Ascot was to go straight to Goodwood [in early August],” O’Brien said, “and just because he’d done so well, we decided to take him here on the way.
“The surprising thing about him is the progress he’s making from race to race. He’s getting more confident, he’s getting stronger and bigger physically, mentally he’s getting more professional. It’s amazing what he’s doing but he’s a lost heavier today, two weeks after running at Ascot, which is very unusual.”
Of the comparisons with Giant’s Causeway, O’Brien said: “He’s quicker, a lot quicker, but Giant always ran at the same weight and this horse is getting heavier, so physically he’s doing very well.”
Chelmsford City
2.10 Insanity 2.45 Eastern Charm 3.20 War In Heaven 3.55 Heredia 4.30 Captain Wentworth 5.05 Premiere Beauty (nap) 5.40 The Defiant
Market Rasen
2.20 Minella Youngy 2.55 Ma Belle Noire 3.30 Allbetsoff 4.05 Rocambolas 4.40 Courtland 5.15 Finalshot 5.50 The Boola Boss
Ayr
2.30 Showalong 3.05 Sennockian 3.40 Banner Road 4.15 Sophiesticate 4.50 Sparks Fly (nb) 5.25 Rory The Cat
The Sussex Stakes at Glorious Goodwood on 2 August remains a very live option for Paddington, with the International Stakes at York later next month also under consideration. Both races have a seven-figure prize fund and would be a huge boost to O’Brien’s chances in the title race.
“Seamus [Heffernan] rides him work every day and the last day he got off him and he couldn’t talk,” O’Brien said. “When those fellas are riding that many horses and getting that way, it just takes you back a little bit.
“I try not to get everyone thinking too much about what could be. We just go on quick to the next day and don’t dwell on it too much. But there’s something very different happening.”
