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The Futurity Looks Bright

Racing Ahead

December 2019

Ian Heitman sees another nice bunch perform – at Newcastle

The Group 1 Vertem Futurity Stakes attracted 12 runners at the five-day entry stage with Aidan O’Brien responsible for 11 and Andrew Balding the other. Come declaration time, 48 hours before the race, that number was whittled down to five for O’Brien with Balding leaving his sole entry in the race.

With this race falling to the weather, it was rescheduled and held at Newcastle on November 1, the first time a Group 1 race had been run on the all weather. As well as the original entries, the race was re-opened to allow additional entries and at the five-day stage this time there were 17 entered, nine from the O’Brien yard and eight from other yards.

Eleven of the 17 faced the starter with Ralph Beckett’s impressive onceraced Newmarket winner, Kinross, the well supported 13/8 favourite having destroyed his 14 rivals by upwards of eight lengths. He was supplemented for this race having been declared for the abandoned Horris Hill the previous Saturday and rather than encounter soft ground at the rescheduled Horris Hill at Newmarket on November 2, Beckett thought the all-weather surface at Newcastle would be better for Kinross.

His main market opposition came from Mogul, one of the five O’Brien runners and the mount of his son Donnacha O’Brien. Mogul, a brother to high-class three-year-old Japan, had previously won a Group 2 contest at Leopardstown in good style and he was bidding to cement his place as one of the favourites for the 2020 Derby. Innisfree, like stablemate Mogul, had won a Group 2 contest on his previous start, his win coming at the Curragh and he was the second string of the O’Brien quintet according to jockey bookings, long-standing Ballydoyle jockey Seamie Heffernan onboard. The other runners from the O’Brien yard were New World Tapestry, Royal County Down and Year Of The Tiger.