Shareta

23rd-Aug-2012

The Fugue could win this well, but she has been a fashionable horse since the start of the season. Her popularity increased when she was an unlucky loser in the Oaks, and it increased again when she won the Nassau Stakes last time.

However, she was no more unlucky than one or two of her rivals in the Oaks, and she enjoyed the complete run of the race in the Nassau Stakes, a race that was probably a little way below Group 1 standard, as things panned out.

The fast ground today will be in her favour, as will the return to York, where she may have put up the best performance of her career to date in dancing in in the Musidora Stakes, but that was over an extended 10 furlongs. The step up to a mile and a half today is not in her favour. She could well stay the trip – there may not be that much pace on – and she could well win, but she is too short for me at 2/1.

Shareta is the most likely winner of the race in my book. Second in last year’s Arc, she was unlucky not to beat the useful Solemia in a Group 2 race at Saint-Cloud in May, and she did well to battle on to retain second place, having led early, behind Meandre and in front of Galikova and an admittedly below-par Danedream in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud in June.

She gets this trip well, she goes well on fast ground, and it could be that she will enjoy an easy time of it up front, if she adopts front-running tactics, which she often does. She also has a turn of foot, which will be a huge asset if this does develop into a slowly-run affair. Best odds of 11/4 are short enough, but they are still too big about her in my book, and it is worth having her on side.

I like Shirocco Star, and she is a big price at 9/1 on the face of it, given that she finished in front of The Fugue in the Oaks, but the ground may just be a little quicker than ideal. The same is probably true for Wild Coco – also by soft-ground influence Shirocco – for whom the drop back down to 12 furlongs is not ideal either.

Coquet is interesting, she was almost put over the rail in the Oaks. If she had enjoyed a trouble-free passage, she might have gone close. However, she hasn’t run since, that can’t have been a nice experience for her and she has reportedly had a setback since, so it is a huge ask for her to come and win a Yorkshire Oaks on her first run since. She could do it, but 12/1 about her doing it is too short ...

Interesting stat about the Yorkshire Oaks. In the last 10 runnings, six have been won by three-year-olds and four have been won by four-year-olds, so the natural conclusion is that three-year-olds have a marginal edge. However, 51 three-year-olds have run in the race, versus just 23 four-year-olds, so, proportionately, the older fillies are well ahead (11.8% versus 17.4%).

Also, three-year-olds are usually the more fashionable bunch, the improvers, the Classic generation. They are usually more high-profile and therefore often over-bet and under-priced. If you had bet €1 on every three-year-old who ran in the Yorkshire Oaks in the last 10 years, you would be showing a net loss of €34.87. If you had bet €1 on every four-year-old, you would be showing a net loss of just €3.52.

SHARETA WON (ADV 11/4, SP 2/1)

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