EZE DOES IT FOR WELD
Dermot delight at 25th Classic win
EZELIYA gave Dermot Weld his second victory in the Oaks — 43 years after Blue Wind’s Epsom triumph.
Shergar was the star turn at the meeting in 1981, registering a 10-length Derby supremacy under Walter Swinburn, three days before Lester Piggott rode Blue Wind to land the fillies’ Classic for the then 32-yearold Weld.
Many of Flat racing’s most coveted prizes have fallen the way of Weld’s Rosewell House Stables on the Curragh during the intervening decades. But the great trainer was forced to employ his trademark patience before the wait for a second Oaks ended courtesy of Ezeliya’s three-length victory from Dance Sequence, with 50-1 shot War Chimes back in third.
Like Weld’s 2016 Derby hero Harzand, Ezeliya carried the silks – green, red epaulets – of the Aga Khan, but the owner’s party was forced to miss the success thanks to a plane grounded in France.
“It’s a few years since I won the Oaks but I haven’t had many runners and I had Tarfasha finish second to Taghrooda [in 2014],” said Weld, now 75.
“It’s been a lucky place for me. I won the Derby with Harzand and rode and trained an amateurs’ Derby winner, too. That’s my 25th British or Irish Classic. Classic races are the pinnacle – it’s what we do it for. “She’s in the Irish Oaks but we’ll decide whether we give her time off for an autumn campaign which may involve the Arc.”
The 13-2 winner was a first in a British Classic for jockey Chris Hayes, content to sit in the second half of the 12runner field before unleashing his mount in the straight.
“I never had a moment’s doubt once I was approaching the furlong pole,” said the jockey.
“I knew nothing was going to be able to come as quickly as she was going to finish. It took me right to the end to pull her up – probably because I was celebrating, but I had a good bit of petrol left.”
Hayes, who toasted the moment by brandishing his whip towards the stands, admitted: “I said, ‘If she wins, I’ll be real cool, calm and collected, like a Mick Kinane.’
“But this is unique – a surge of adrenaline in the last 50 yards – I had to do something!”
Sustained support saw Ylang Ylang sent off the 11-8 favourite but Ryan Moore reported the Aidan O’brien trainee, who came home in sixth, to have been ill at ease on the track.
Moore had excelled aboard Ballydoyle’s Luxembourg, dictating a sedate gallop en route to landing the Group 1 Holland Cooper Coronation Cup.
Shadowed by defending champion Emily Upjohn during the early exchanges, Luxembourg (left), racing at a mile and a half for just the third time, sprinted clear from the threefurlong pole.
The winner had enough in reserve to hold the late run of Hamish by one length and O’brien said: “Ryan gave him a brilliant ride. When he started to quicken, his fractions were brilliant.
“A horse like that in front, the way Ryan was riding him, was always going to be difficult to deal with.”