Soccer

Baaeed heading for Newbury and Lockinge return

The unbeaten colt Baaeed has remained in training and will reappear in Newbury’s Group 1 Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes on Saturday May 14, for which he is odds-on favourite.

From there, the plan looks set to be a return to Royal Ascot for a tilt at the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes in June, for a horse who didn't even make his racecourse debut until that month last year.
After the cosy Leicester success, the son of the brilliant Sea The Stars came on leaps and bounds. He went to Newmarket and defied to penalty in annihilating his field a couple of weeks later, before returning there for the July meeting and dotting up in the Listed Sir Henry Cecil Stakes.
It was pretty obvious he was Group class and his trainer saw that, next sending him to the Group 3 Bonhams Thoroughbred Stakes at Glorious Goodwood, where he routed his field by more than six lengths.
His ability to handle good to soft, as well as fast ground, meant that he could continue his season into the autumn and that paid further dividends.
Stepping up to Group 1 level, he was the comfortable winner of the Prix Du Moulin at ParisLongchamp, beating Order Of Australia.
As impressive as he had been, his real test came in his final start of 2021, when Haggas aimed him at the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Champions Day. There, he got involved in a scrap with the John and Thady Gosden-trained favourite Palace Pier and prevailed by a neck. It was his best effort yet.
"At the moment he's absolutely fine but he's just about to start fast work so I guess that's when the potential wheel could come off but at the moment everything's good," Haggas told ITV.
"He got better as he went on last year so you'd hope he can keep doing or maintain improvement this year.
"We start in the Lockinge and hopefully go for the Queen Anne and then we'll sit down and make a plan but all options are open at the moment. He might even get further. He might even be better over further.
"I've done a lot of talking about this horse already and it's only April, so let him do the talking."
He'll get that opportunity at the Berkshire track next month, when the Shadwell Estate Company-owned four-year-old looks likely to extend his partnership with jockey Jim Crowley.

More Articles