UK Horse Racing Tips

Rated 140 by Timeform, alongside the likes of Shergar and Dancing Brave, Sea The Stars was, far and away, the outstanding horse of his generation. In his 3-year-old campaign, in 2009, he beat everything put in front of him, winning six Group 1 races in a row, at distances between a mile and a mile and a half and was named Cartier Horse of the Year.

Trained in Co. Kildare by John Oxx and ridden, exclusively, by Michael ‘Mick’ Kinane, Sea The Stars won the Group 2 Beresford Stakes at the Curragh on his third and final start as juvenile. He reappeared in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, where he beat the impressive Craven Stakes winner, and favourite, Delegator, by 1½ lengths. He subsequently became the first horse since Nashwan, in 1989, to complete the 2,000 Guineas – Derby double, beating a bevy of Aidan O’Brien-trained runners, including Fame And Glory, at Epsom.

Thereafter, Sea The Stars started odds-on for his remaining four starts. In the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown, he had to dig deep to fend off the Derby fourth, Rip Van Winkle, but won the Juddmonte International at York and the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown in comfortable, if unspectacular, style, as was his trademark. Stepped back up to a mile and a half for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, he pulled hard early on, but ultimately quickened clear to win, impressively, by 2 lengths.

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