Time has seen the giddy excitement that surrounded Love fade somewhat but circumstances have presented Aidan O’Brien’s star filly with an opportunity to put up perhaps the most substantive performance of her career at York on Wednesday.
Once acclaimed as possibly the best filly ever put through O’Brien’s hands, Love would now lose out in most popular debates about whether she’s even the best of her sex in Ballydoyle right now.
Snowfall’s position as red-hot favourite for Thursday’s Yorkshire Oaks reflects her status as racing’s latest pin-up just a year after her older stable-mate turned the same race into a five-length rout that grabbed every eye with its style.
Circumstances conspired to prevent a subsequent tilt at the Arc but two starts in Love’s four-year-old career have added meat to the bones of suspicions about the quality of opposition she summarily dismissed during her 2020 Classic campaign.
Rustiness appeared a legitimate excuse for a scrambling success in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes. Having to employ excuses after the King George was an uncomfortable exercise for those who reckoned Love really could conquer all.
The daughter of Galileo failed to fire up the straight and looked less than comfortable as Adayar and Mishriff fought out the finish in front of her.
Originally set to go to Deauville on Sunday for the Prix Jean Romanet, Love is now employed in a ‘super-sub’ role for the injured St Mark’s Basilica as the first day of York’s Ebor festival gets underway.
It could hardly be a bigger stage either with the 50th renewal of a race rated the best run anywhere in the world last year.
Since Roberto’s shock defeat of Brigadier Gerard in 1972 the International in its various guises has more often than not proved an ultra-reliable barometer of quality.
A roll of honour featuring the two great names of the modern era, Sea The Stars and Frankel, includes other abundant evidence of how York in August throws up a well-found middle-distance pecking order.
The absence of both Adayar and St Mark’s Basilica suggests this might not be a vintage version. But the presence of Mishriff, Alcohol Free and the other Irish hope, Jim Bolger’s Mac Swiney, assures it of proper Group One substance.
Unsurprisingly O’Brien is prepared to forgive Love her King George effort, describing the race as “a bit of a mess” after his other hope Broome blew the start. Love drops back in trip here but the man in pursuit of a record seventh International victory reckons a true pace is a more vital element.
“She has a big long stride and gallops with her head out. Usually those type of horses can’t quicken instantly. They need a big rhythm into the last four or five furlongs to see them at their best,” he reported to Racing TV.
It’s a noteworthy statement for a filly that won the Guineas in style, although once again the bare worth of the form of that race looks debatable in hindsight.
In contrast the form of the other filly in Wednesday’s highlight, Alcohol Free, looks rock-solid considering she got the better of Poetic Flare in the Sussex Stakes last time. She goes beyond a mile for the first time here.
Half a dozen fillies feature on the International’s stellar roll of honour, from the superstar Dahlia, who won back to back in 1974-75, to the shock 50-1 Arabian Queen who carried the Alcohol Free colours to success in 2015.
She, however, is the only filly or mare to win it in over two decades.
It’s a scale of the challenge ultimately put in front of Love if she is to become the 11th Irish-trained winner of world-renowned race. She has a length and three quarters to find with Mishriff on King George form and that tip-top colt might be better suited by the drop in trip.
So if she emerges on top in this sort of company it will put to bed any suggestion of Love being anything other than the real deal.
High Definition has endured a stop-start season to date but has a chance to get it back on track when leading a three-pronged Ballydoyle attack into the Group Two Great Voltigeur Stakes.
The winter Derby favourite sustained a cut heel when beating only one in the Curragh Derby in June. He is joined by both Sir Lucan and The Mediterranean – both sporting first time cheekpieces – in the traditional Leger trial.
