Ben Linfoot was our man at Epsom for Betfred Oaks day and he witnessed a Classic winner with even more to come after a most straightforward success.
Dermot Weld doesn’t waste his time coming to England with his horses if they don’t have a good chance. All those fillies bred in the purple that he’s had through his hands over the years and he has brought just five of them over to the Betfred Oaks this century.
The latest, Ezeliya, was his second winner of the race, fully 43 years after his first, Blue Wind, in 1981. You could say it’s a triumph of perseverance and patience, but really it’s just another example of knowing what you’ve got and when to go for it. Weld, at 75-years-old, is a master of his trade, this a 25th British and Irish Classic win, a shining example of his life’s work.
Ezeliya’s jockey, Chris Hayes, wasn’t born the last time Weld won the Oaks. The 36-year-old from County Limerick came into the world six years after Blue Wind’s triumph and for all his big-race success, most of it for Weld, this was a first British Classic victory for him.
It meant a lot, a vigorous pump of the fist crossing the line, his faith in this filly fully vindicated.
“It means the world to me,” he said afterwards. “These are the races you grow up watching. I said I wouldn’t celebrate but I couldn’t hold it in.”
Unlike Mickael Barzalona on Pour Moi in the 2011 Derby, Hayes waited to punch the air until after the winning line, but in reality he could’ve gone earlier such was the dominance of Ezeliya.
Hayes was motionless, in the famous green with red epaulettes silks of the Aga Khan, with just over a quarter of a mile to go, and when he asked his filly to go and catch Dance Sequence she duly obliged, rolling off the camber to record a comfortable three-length success.
Hayes went on: “She’s beautiful, a real delicate action. She has pace, she travels, she settled and got into a lovely rhythm. It really was like a piece of work once she ran off the hill, I loved the way she changed leads for me.”
And Weld liked what he saw from his man in the saddle.
“I thought Chris Hayes gave her a peach of a ride,” he said, his wispy hair blowing in the wind on a breezy and cold day on the Epsom Downs. “He had her in a beautiful position throughout. I like to see horses getting into a rhythm and she did that, it was very straightforward today.”
Rhythm indeed.
Hayes settled Ezeliya in the rear early on, inched his way through the field gradually and then she handled Tattenham Corner quite beautifully – despite having to come quite wide around the field. Three out she was tanking, two out she was racing and a furlong out she hit the front. An Oaks win straight from the Epsom textbook.
A first Epsom Classic win for the stallion Dubawi – you wait 15 runners for one and then you land an Oaks forecast – Weld left us wondering about her next target. She could go for the Irish Oaks, but he’s already thinking of an autumn campaign and that could mean a trip to Paris.
“She’s from a great Aga Khan family,” Weld said. “They stay and they are tough as teak. She’s a filly that will make a lovely four-year-old, too, there’s a lot of physical improvement to come from her.”
It seems there was always a quiet confidence about Ezeliya from within the camp. Describing what it’s like to ride for Weld, Hayes was quick to point out that while she was fancied, he went out to ride her without a hint of pressure.
“It’s magic, because when you’re riding in these type of races, the less pressure the better,” he said. “It’s almost pleasant in the week leading up to it. He casually comes up for a chat and it’s lovely, it’s nice going out thinking there’s confidence behind you.”
Weld took it all in his stride. You sensed he enjoyed it, the perspective he’s gained from a long career at the top allowing him to do so.
He said: “The years go by, I’ve been very fortunate with my health, I know this track well, I just got beat with a lovely filly called Tarfasha a few years ago, but I haven’t had many runners. It’s hard to get fillies like this. Harzand won the Derby here and I rode the winner of the amateur Derby here – and trained it!”
Today it was Weld’s day again and Hayes’ and Ezeliya’s. You never know with an Oaks winner, but you sense it won’t be the last time the trio combine for big-race success. Like when Hayes was cruising three out in the Oaks, it just seems a matter of when.
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