By Tom Frary
There was a Guineas-Oaks double on the line in Friday's Betfred-sponsored Classic, but in truth Desert Flower never really featured as Ballydoyle's Epsom stranglehold tightened further. From the start, the stable's number one Minnie Hauk followed stablemate Whirl around and from over two out it was that pair who dominated, coming home in isolation to complete another successful assault by Rosegreen on the fillies' monument. An astonishing 11th in this particular race.
Frankel's Minnie Hauk, who was a headline act from the first sight of her in public at the 2023 Goffs Orby Book 1 Sale, was just getting started when winning the Listed Cheshire Oaks last month and there was more than a degree of comfort in this follow-up despite the winning margin being only a neck. Able to saunter behind the strong tempo set by Wootton Bassett's Musidora winner, the 9-2 second favourite was set alight by Ryan Moore heading to the three-furlong pole with Whirl's rider Wayne Lordan still holding something back.
It was between the three and the two that the Oaks was won, however, with Minnie Hauk engaging that acceleration derived from her Juddmonte dynasty of Kingman and co. to record a race-settling split of :11.41. While Whirl was faster in the final furlong, it may have been the winner idling or paying for her earlier surge or a mixture of both. Godolphin's 1,000 Guineas-winning 11-10 favourite Desert Flower, whose sire Night Of Thunder was never going to be a convincing source of stamina, was tiring at the death four lengths away.
“The filly in front is good and kept building the whole way, but my filly got there easily and then waited with me,” Moore said. “I think she'll improve for the experience and she won't need to go beyond a mile and a half–she'll be an Irish Oaks/Nassau type of filly and we'll go from there. She should continue to thrive.”
Introduced over a mile at Cork at the beginning of October, Minnie Hauk shaped as many of the stable's newcomers do when in need of that initial education 2 1/2 lengths adrift of Wemightakedlongway. Sharper for her second day at school later that month, she went one better at Leopardstown and continued her incremental progression on her return in the Cheshire Oaks with one of those workmanlike performances that suggest so much more.
Aidan O'Brien had talked recently about the improvement made by Lake Victoria from her first start of the season and Minnie Hauk is clearly another who has engineered a quantum leap since her relaunch. After she had become the first of the trainer's nine Cheshire Oaks winners to follow up in this, the master of Ballydoyle offered an insight into her rate of progression. “She barely made Chester and she made abnormal improvement from there, which we thought she might,” he explained. “That win was all about class rather than stamina or fitness, she just has a lot of class.”
“I'd say she's still a bit green and she was always going to improve with racing,” he added. “She's a great traveller with a lot of class–Ryan said he was going very easy early on–so she can take on the boys if the lads decide. 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.”
Whirl's performance follows hot on the heels of the Prix du Jockey Club victory of Camille Pissarro and O'Brien was keen to focus on the current Wootton Bassett phenomenon sweeping his stable. “It's very unusual what they are doing, they are speed horses but a lot are staying as well,” he said. “She was fighting back again at the line–it's incredible really. Maybe she might be comfortable going back to a mile and a quarter.”
Charlie Appleby said of Desert Flower, “It just looked like she got a bit unbalanced coming down the hill and hit a bit of a flat spot just at the point you don't want to, but take nothing away from the first two as they just kept galloping. I wasn't worried about the ground, but William [Buick] felt travelling round early doors before we even got into the race that she would be more comfortable on a sounder surface.”
“She stayed, but she hasn't got a kick at this distance and William said he wouldn't mind bringing her back to a mile and a quarter,” he added. “Even if we had got to them, they looked like they would have kicked again and they were both finding at the business end whereas all we were doing was galloping.”
Appleby was not ruling out another tilt at the trip. “I'll let the dust settle as always, but I would like to see her on a more conventional track just because of the size of her. The jury is out on the trip, but personally I would like to see her in the Yorkshire Oaks–a nice, galloping track like that will suit her. It's not a bad result and she's finished third in a Classic, but we'll regroup and go again.”
Pedigree Notes
Minnie Hauk's dam Multilingual, a daughter of Dansili who was purchased out of the Juddmonte draft by the Sangsters for $525,000 at the 2019 Keeneland November Sale, is out of Zamindar's G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches heroine Zenda which makes her a half-sister to the brilliant Kingman and a full-sister to the G3 Tercentenary Stakes winner Remote.
Zenda, a half-sister to the sprinter and sire supreme Oasis Dream, also produced a son of Frankel in First Eleven who was in his element at this trip and was third in the G3 Cumberland Lodge Stakes. The fourth dam Bahamian was fifth in this Classic before producing the Irish Oaks heroine Wemyss Bight whose son of Sadler's Wells, Beat Hollow, was third in the Derby.
After her sale, Multilingual produced as her first foal First Defence's Tilsit who took the G2 Summer Mile and G3 Thoroughbred Stakes and was second in the G1 Prix d'Ispahan. She has a 2-year-old filly by No Nay Never named Voice Coach and has just produced a filly foal by Justify.
Minnie Hauk repels stablemate Whirl to land the @Betfred Oaks for Aidan O'Brien and Ryan Moore! pic.twitter.com/SGV54AKYhq
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) June 6, 2025
Friday, Epsom, Britain
BETFRED OAKS-G1, £573,150, Epsom, 6-6, 3yo, f, 12f 6yT, 2:38.91, g/s.
1–MINNIE HAUK (IRE), 128, f, 3, by Frankel (GB)
1st Dam: Multilingual (GB), by Dansili (GB)
2nd Dam: Zenda (GB), by Zamindar
3rd Dam: Hope (Ire), by Dancing Brave
1ST GROUP WIN; 1ST GROUP 1 WIN. (€1,850,000 Ylg '23 GOFOR). O-Derrick Smith, Mrs John Magnier & Michael Tabor; B-B V Sangster; T-Aidan O'Brien; J-Ryan Moore. £325,033. Lifetime Record: 4-3-1-0, $547,284. *1/2 to Tilsit (First Defence), MGSW-Eng & G1SP-Fr, $234,843. Werk Nick Rating: A+++ *Triple Plus*. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree, or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Whirl (Ire), 128, f, 3, Wootton Bassett (GB)–Salsa (Ire), by Galileo (Ire). 1ST GROUP 1 BLACK TYPE. O-Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith & Mrs John Magnier; B-Coolmore; T-Aidan O'Brien. £123,227.
3–Desert Flower (Ire), 128, f, 3, Night Of Thunder (Ire)–Promising Run, by Hard Spun. TDN Rising Star. O/B-Godolphin; T-Charlie Appleby. £61,671.
Margins: NK, 4, 1. Odds: 4.50, 7.50, 1.10.
Also Ran: Wemightakedlongway (Ire), Giselle (Ire), Revoir (GB), Elwateen (Ire), Qilin Queen (Ire), Go Go Boots (GB).
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