By Tom Frary
When it comes to Chester's May Festival, Aidan O'Brien always means business and Amelia Earhart (Camelot) got Ballydoyle's 2026 team off to a flyer on Wednesday to provide the stable with a 10th Listed Weatherbys Cheshire Oaks.
Sent off the 13-8 second favourite fitted with blinkers for the first time, the Coolmore homebred who took the same Leopardstown maiden as last year's winner Minnie Hauk travelled easily for Ryan Moore under cover throughout.
Sent to the front at the furlong pole, she had too many guns for the Gosdens' 6-5 market-leader I'm The One (Sea The Stars) by two lengths, with A La Prochaine (Lope De Vega) 1 1/4 lengths away in third for Wathnan and Ralph Beckett.
“I was very happy with her, she's a fine big filly from a family we know well and she handled the track and the ground,” Ryan Moore said. “She was suited by the step up in trip today and she'd have learnt plenty and enjoyed herself.”
Placed in three maidens prior to finishing fourth in the G3 Weld Park Stakes all over seven furlongs, it was only when Amelia Earhart moved up to a mile on her last juvenile start that she was able to generate the power her stable had long believed was in the engine. Handed the perfect scenario here thanks to the lead provided by her G3 Staffordstown Stud Stakes-winning stablemate Sugar Island (Dubawi), she produced a final-furlong split of 11.28 to demonstrate the speed she possesses.
I'm The One, who missed the break and was instantly on the back foot from her draw as a result, was wide off the home turn and despite finishing faster over the last three furlongs than she did when impressing at Newbury was unable to get to the winner.
“She blew the last bend slightly, which is costly around here as we all know,” the runner-up's jockey William Buick said. “I think everybody is happy with what she did there, the winner was well-touted before and I think it might prove quite a good edition of the race. She's learned plenty and it can be a challenging place for horses who are inexperienced, but ultimately it does them good.”
John Gosden was equally positive. “I'm delighted with her and she's run great,” he said. “The winning filly is smart and she was learning all the way round. She was on the wrong leg a couple of times and got in a muddle on the bend, so this was like having three races in one. We'll leave everything open, but she'll take a race like that and build on it. It was a very good run considering she is so inexperienced.”
Amelia Earhart defeats I'm The One in the Weatherbys Cheshire Oaks! @ChesterRaces pic.twitter.com/lsusFovYOK
— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) May 6, 2026
The dam Venus De Milo (Ire) (Duke Of Marmalade) was successful in the G3 Give Thanks Stakes and G3 Munster Oaks and was runner-up in the Irish Oaks, Yorkshire Oaks and Pretty Polly and was third in the Nassau. Her son of Camelot, Cleveland, won around here before taking the G2 Moonee Valley Gold Cup while her G3 Pinnacle Stakes-placed What A Home (Lope De Vega) produced the stable's G3 Acomb Stakes winner The Lion In Winter (Sea The Stars) who was placed in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, Breeders' Cup Mile, Prix du Moulin de Longchamp and Prix Jean Prat.
Also from the family of the E. P. Taylor Stakes-winning Canadian champion Miss Keller by Camelot's sire Montjeu, the King George and Prince of Wales's Stakes hero Poet's Word (Poet's Voice) and Ahonoora's successful sire Inchinor, Venus De Milo's 2024 and 2025 colts are by St Mark's Basilica, with the former selling for 85,000gns to Bennett Racing Pty at last year's Tattersalls October Book 1.
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