Minnie Hauk, the 2025 Betfred Oaks winner returns. (Breandán Ó hUallacháin photo)
By Breandán Ó hUallacháin
Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien and the Coolmore partners had a 1-2 in the Group 1 Betfred Oaks at Epsom on Friday afternoon.
In a hotly contested – on paper at least – second fillies’ classic of the year in Britain, Ryan Moore rode the 9/2 chance Minnie Hauk to the win, just narrowly holding off her stable companion Whirl (15/2), with County Cork-born jockey Wayne Lordan in saddle.
Whirl, took the field along in the early stages of the one and a half mile premier classic for fillies, with the daughter of Juddmonte Farms’ stallion Frankel, Minnie Hauk, in close proximity.
As the field rounded Tattenham Corner which leads into the Epsom Downs Racecourse home stretch, Lordan pushed for home on the daughter of Wootton Bassett, the sire of winners of both the French 2000 Guineas and French Derby so far this season.
Whirl was not for stopping, however, and Moore had to ask his mount to go and tackle her pacemaker. With both Ballydoyle-based fillies fighting out the finish, Minnie Hauk finally prevailed by just a neck at the wire.
Whirl and Lordan had to settle for a very brave second, but both Coolmore-owned three-year-olds had pulled well clear of the race favourite, Desert Flower (11/10), who won the first fillies’ classic of the season at Newmarket, England, last month, when landing the one-mile Betfred 1000 Guineas for Godolphin, trainer Charlie Appleby and rider William Buick.
Desert Flower was well beaten into third place today over the longer distance of a mile and a half, and finished the race four lengths behind Whirl.
For Aidan O’Brien it was a Group 1 double on the day as Jan Brueghel had earlier won the Betfred Coronation Stakes.
“I’m delighted with her,” admitted O’Brien, “she’s very classy and Ryan (Moore) gave her a beautiful ride. He loved her the last day (at Chester) and then again today, so she’s very exciting.
“What you love about her is that she’s a great traveller; she has a lot of class. Ryan felt he was going very easily today on her and usually what that means is that she will be able to step up a couple of grades into even higher-class races. It’s lovely for the lads (the Coolmore partners) and for everyone to have another filly like that.
“There’s every possibility she will be an Arc filly. She’s a big middle-distance filly who was working like a Guineas filly. When that happens it’s a little bit different. The Irish Oaks is always close to our hearts and then there’s the Yorkshire Oaks and the French trials before the Arc (Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe).”
Coolmore’s M V Magnier purchased the Ben Sangster-bred Minnie Hauk for €1.85million at the Goffs Orby Sale from the Camas Park Stud draft. She is a 37th Group 1 win for Juddmonte Farms’ Frankel and is the second Group 1 winner among eight stakes winners by Frankel from daughters of Dansili – the other winner at the highest level also being a Betfred Oaks winner in Soul Sister.
Minnie Hauk’s success was an 11th win in the race for O’Brien, who first won the race with Shahtoush back in 1998, and his most recent victory prior to today was with Tuesday in 2022. O’Brien is now only two wins behind the 19th century British trainer Robert Robson who won the race 13 times during his career.
