Latest news with #SeagullsEleven
Irish Examiner
24-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Ruby Walsh: Shoemark left counting the cost of tarnished Field Of Gold ride
When Field Of Gold broke from the stalls in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket earlier this month, Kieran Shoemark had a decision to make: pass Benevento and slide forward into the slipstream of Seagulls Eleven, parking Ruling Court behind and outside him, or take back and allow Shane Foley on Green Impact to track Seagulls Eleven, putting himself behind Green Impact, allowing William Buick on Ruling Court to pass him and sit on Green Impact's quarter. He chose the latter, and the history the race created will never hold fond memories for Kieran Shoemark. It took 13 seconds to unfold, but once Ruling Court headed Field Of Gold, the destiny of the result was in William Buick's hands, and Shoemark was left hoping Buick would move forward early enough to give him time to catch up. This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Subscribe to access all of the Irish Examiner. Annual €120€60 Best value Monthly €10€4 / month Unlimited access. Subscriber content. Daily ePaper. Additional benefits.
Daily Mirror
30-04-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
James Milner and Danny Welbeck's exciting racehorse to challenge for 2,000 Guineas
Brighton stars James Milner and Danny Welbeck could be celebrating a huge win at the races, 24 hours before the team's home Premier League match against Newcastle this weekend. Milner and Welbeck are among the group named Two Plus Three Two Plus Four which own Seagulls Eleven, trained by Hugo Palmer who is based at Michael Owen's Manor House Stables in Cheshire. The colt, whose 11 owners are either current or ex-Brighton players, won once and was placed in two Group 1 races from six starts last year when he ran in the club's blue and white-striped silks. Palmer recorded his only 2,000 Guineas victory in 2011 with Galileo Gold, the sire of Seagulls Eleven who will line up under jockey Tom Marquand in the Betfred 2,000 Guineas where the trainer expects him to run a lot better than his 50-1 odds. Palmer, speaking to the Nick Luck Daily Podcast, said there are many similarities between Seagulls Eleven and his father. 'He certainly occupies a significant place in my heart,' he said. 'I feel about the horse the same way. He was actually a better two-year-old. He was rated 112 and Galileo Gold only 110 for all that he achieved slightly less in than Galileo Gold who was a Group 2 winner and Seagulls Eleven has only been placed. 'We were always hoping with him to go to the Solario but he managed to lacerate his tongue and we had to miss that. We went to the National Stakes instead where he ran a big race.' He continued: 'He goes to Newmarket on Saturday with exactly the same preparation as his father had and it has gone as smoothly. He is a slightly bigger and heavier horse than Galileo Gold but other than that they look very similar.' Recalling Galileo Gold's victory under Frankie Dettori, Palmer said: 'He worked brilliantly at the Craven meeting. Frankie Dettori rode him and he won his gallop by upwards of a dozen lengths, the same way Seagulls Eleven did two weeks ago. 'I said to Frankie Dettori, 'Do you think he'd be competitive in the French Guineas?' and he said, 'Why go to France? This horse will win any Guineas I've ever ridden in'. My knees buckled. George Boughey, my then assistant, had another £1,000 on Galileo Gold at 40-1 and off we went. 'I haven't had the same confidence-buoying moment as that, but I think whatever beats Joseph O'Brien's Scorthy Champ will win the race. On that basis we have a length and a half to find and we might have been closer had Henri Matisse not significantly interfered with us in the race. 'I thought our horse slightly underachieved last year. He is a big horse and it might just be he was a touch on the weak side as a two-year-old and my hope is that he has strengthened up this year and will see his races out better.'
The Guardian
15-04-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
A few swallows makes a spring return for the Flat season at Newmarket
After weeks of unseasonably warm temperatures, the only hint of spring as Newmarket opened its doors for a new season here on Tuesday was a small flight of swallows over the Rowley Mile – back from Africa in time for a wet and chilly first day at the Craven meeting. Weather-wise, it felt more like Plumpton in January than the home of Flat racing on the first afternoon of a new campaign. But the conditions could not dampen the sense of opening-day anticipation as the first of 2025's Guineas hopefuls went to post for their Classic trials on the Rowley Mile, before a potential tilt at racing immortality back here in less than three weeks. The Craven meeting is all about the future, from the unraced juveniles breezing alongside the track in the morning before going under the hammer at Tattersalls a few hours later to the potential Group One winners blowing away the winter cobwebs on a course that staged the first race run under an official set of rules all the way back in 1666. On Tuesday, it was the turn of the three-year-old fillies with Classic aspirations as 10 runners lied up for the Nell Gwyn, including six with an entry in the 1,000 Guineas on 4 May. It was one of the other four that emerged in front, however, as John and Thady Gosden's Zanzoun, a 9-1 shot, quickened one-and-three-quarter lengths clear of Celestial Orbit, also at 9-1, with the 20-1 chance Remaat back in third. Zanzoun is certainly bred to win a Classic, with the uber-stallions Dubawi and Frankel on either side of her pedigree, but a trip to Paris for the Poule D'Essai Des Pouliches – the French equivalent of the 1,000 Guineas – seems a more likely target than the much shorter journey back down the road from the Gosdens' yard in 20 days' time. 'That could well be the case,' John Gosden said. 'There is a very good Aga Khan filly [Zarigana] we saw the other day in the Prix De La Grotte, but it's lovely to win here and we've got nice plans to make.' Newmarket's main Guineas trial for colts, the Craven Stakes over the full Classic trip of a mile, will be run here on Wednesday, but there was a likely runner in the 2,000 Guineas on the track before racing on Tuesday as Hugo Palmer took the chance to exercise Seagulls Eleven, a son of the trainer's 2016 2,000 Guineas winner, Galileo Gold, on the Rowley Mile. Seagulls Eleven is a 50-1 shot for the Guineas but kept very good company as a juvenile, ending his two-year-old campaign with three runs in Group One company including a one-and-a-half length third behind Scorthy Champ and Henri Matisse, the subsequent Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner, in the National Stakes at the Curragh. That form offers real hope to Palmer and Seagulls Eleven's owners, a syndicate of current and former Brighton & Hove Albion players, that their £50k purchase – a relative pittance for a Guineas hope – will not be out of place among the best of his generation in next month's Classic. None of the syndicate are likely to be there to watch him run, however, as Brighton are at home to Newcastle – Palmer's team – on the Sunday of Guineas weekend, although goalkeeper Jason Steele was at Newmarket for Tuesday's gallop. 'I've only won one Guineas and we brought his dad here to gallop as well, and they do look very similar,' Palmer said. 'It's a very open renewal, although Aidan [O'Brien] seems to sound like he's basically got it won and he might only run one horse [Twain], and I do remember him saying that about Air Force Blue [the beaten favourite in 2016] as well. 'I think we all think that footballers play 90 minutes of football on a Saturday and spend the rest of the time racing their Ferraris around but they are incredibly busy guys. 'All of them played for Brighton when we bought the horse, but a few have moved on. Brighton actually play Newcastle on 1,000 Guineas day, so I think they should all come here and get absolutely wrecked the day before.' Eight of the nine runners in Wednesday's Craven Stakes at Newmarket still hold an entry in next month's 2,000 Guineas and half a dozen of those ended their juvenile season in Group One events, but the most interesting runner in the field is arguably Charlie Appleby's Opera Ballo (3.35), who did not race at two and is stepping into Group-race company for the first time. Appleby's Notable Speech, last year's 2,000 Guineas winner, was the first colt to win the Classic without having raced as a juvenile for 86 years. He started his racing career in minor events at Kempton in January and February, and Opera Ballo arrives at the Craven having won the same two races in impressive style. He also posted a very fast time when quickening four lengths clear under a hand ride on his latest start, and is a decent bet at around 4-1 to improve past his more experienced opponents and preserve his unbeaten record. Newmarket 1.50 Double Rush was much improved when switched to the all-weather for his three-year-old debut and still has plenty in hand even from his reassessed mark if he is anywhere close to that form back on turf. Cheltenham 2.05 The novice Typhoon Flyer was an emphatic winner on decent ground at Haydock last time and is a fair price at around 5-1 to continue his progress off a 6lb higher mark. Newmarket 2.25 No form at all in this traditional event for unraced three-year-olds, but Muhaajim boasts an impeccable pedigree and his trainer knows what is required in this race. Cheltenham 1.30 Toad Hall 2.05 Typhoon Flyer 2.40 Blow Your Wad 3.15 Ajp Kingdom 3.50 Dashel Drasher 4.25 Hymac 5.00 Liverpool Knight Beverley 1.40 Ali Shuffle 2.15 Equity Law 2.50 True Promise 3.25 Adoon Valley 4.00 Lightening Mann 4.32 Nibras Gold 5.07 Moby Quick 5.37 Catton Lady Newmarket 1.50 Double Rush (nap) 2.25 Muhaajim 3.00 Apollo One 3.35 Opera Ballo 4.10 Stellenbosch 4.45 Valedictory 5.20 Stanage (nb) Ffos Las 4.37 Buckna 5.12 Pyleigh Master 5.45 Lilting Verse 6.15 A Moments Madness 6.45 West To The Bridge 7.15 River Run Free 7.45 Just Aidan Cheltenham 2.40 Runners from the title-chasing yards dominate the market and Tom Lacey's Blow Your Wad, a Grade Two-winning novice who ran well on his belated return to action in February, may have crept in at a value price as result. Newmarket 3.00 Apollo One has a decent record fresh and made a deserved breakthrough at Group Three level on his final start last year.
