Babouche ran out the brilliant winner of the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh on Saturday for Juddmonte Farms and Ger Lyons to become the latest top-flight winner for our wonderful stalwart Kodiac.
The race was billed as a clash between the Aidan O'Brien-trained Whistlejacket and Babouche, who was bidding to make it three out of three following successes in the Group 3 Anglesey Stakes and her debut at Cork, and it didn't disappoint. As Whistlejacket cut out the early running with Arizona Blaze, Babouche was always following in their slipstream and having drawn up to the leaders, found another gear when asked by Colin Keane to quicken clear for a length-and-a-half score.
"We've always thought a lot of her," said Colin Keans. "She was a very good winner the last day when it didn't go to plan. But we learnt a lot about her - we went very quick but riding her it doesn't feel that way.
"Even though we were going along at a good pace today, I was still travelling very strong. But then she relaxed into it and almost had a little look when we hit the front. She has a lot of natural speed. I was nursing her to get to Ryan [Moore, on Whistlejacket] and once we got there, I wasn't that hard on her as I couldn't feel anything coming.
"She's similar to [sister] Zarinsk, she got better with racing and wanted to please you all the time. Hopefully this filly can stretch out to 7f and maybe a mile down the line."
Ger Lyons added: "She went asleep on me after Cork and I was sort of shooting blind going into the Anglesey. So I was nervous going into that race.
"We knew very early in the year that she was good, that we had one - what that meant though, we didn't know. She's always been very straightforward, a pleasure to train and her biggest strength is her temperament.
"It was always straightforward with what Aidan was going to do with the colt. He set a good pace and nine times out of ten you can't get past him, and today we did.
"Subject to the conversations and her staying in one piece, you'd be thinking of the Cheveley Park next."
The first filly to win the Phoenix since La Collina in 2011, Babouche is out of the Arch mare Pavlosk, a Listed-winning relation to Zafonic and Zamindar. Pavlosk previously clicked with Kodiac to produce the high-class Zarinsk, whose five wins for the same connections included the Group 2 Minstrel Stakes and Group 3 Brownstown and Cornelscourt Stakes.
One of 99 stakes winners for Kodiac, she becomes his eighth winner at Group 1 level. Others include other brilliant 2yo fillies such as Fairyland, Tiggy Wiggy and Campanelle.
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