Porta Fortuna and Tom Marquand (Breandán Ó hUallacháin)
By Breandán Ó hUallacháin
Porta Fortuna notched up her fourth career Group 1 success with a win in Saturday’s €400,000 Coolmore America ‘Justify’ Matron Stakes at Leopardstown, Ireland.
One of two Group 1 contest on the opening day of the 2024 Irish Champions Festival, the three-year-old filly began the race as morning line favourite.
British-trained runner Fallen Angel, ridden by James Doyle for the filly’s new owners Wathnam Racing, finished second, one length behind the winner, while Soprano and Billy Loghnane were third, a further half-length behind.
The winner, Porta Fortuna, trained in County Tipperary by Donnacha O’Brien, youngest son of Ireland’s perennial champion flat trainer, Aidan, the daughter of Caravaggio had already won two races at the highest level this season, the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, and the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket.
The winning handler, Donnacha O’Brien, said of the filly who had earlier this season finished runner-up in the QIPCO 1000 Guineas at Newmarket, England:
“She is an incredible filly. She shows up every day. It is a huge honour to train her and I’m lucky to have her. You can never be confident going into a Group 1, no matter what the bookies are saying. They are hard to win.
The former Group 1-winning rider continued:
“She has always been good, but you can never be sure they’re going to develop into something like that. You can never dream of that. It is a huge honour to have the filly and she’s very special.”
Part-owner of the winning filly [along with Medallion Racing, 2020 LLC, Barry Fowler, and Reeves Thoroughbred Racing], Steve Weston of Parkland Thoroughbreds said of his star filly following another major victory:
“We love the way she ran the first time out. When she came up the rail at The Curragh, she showed a lot of guts. It has been a horse of a lifetime; we’ll never be able to get anything this good.
Donnacha O’Brien admitted that the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar is the next target for his now four-time Group 1-winning filly:
“(The Breeders’ Cup in) America is the plan. We will take her home and see how she is but all things being well, we’ll be going to Del Mar.
“She pings the gates,” O’Brien continued, “you can put her where you want her and she just relaxes, and when you can do that, you never have too many moments of worry as you’re always going to be in a good position. Everything went to plan. Tom [Marquand] gave her a lovely ride.
“She will get an easy week or two now. We had it in our heads that if she won here, she would skip Newmarket [Sun Chariot Stakes].”
When asked if the filly, bred by Aidan and Annmarie O’Brien’s Whisperview Trading Ltd., would be kept in training as a four-year-old next year, Steve Weston, stated: “Absolutely! – we’ve already talked about that.”
Porta Fortuna defied the unfavourable statistics for favourites in the race, where only two market favourites had claimed the contest in the last 10 years – Legatissimo in 2015 and Tahiyra in 2023.
The three-year-old maintained the impressive record of classic-generation fillies in winning the one-mile race as three-year-olds had won eight of the previous ten renewals of the Coolmore America-sponsored event.
