Ahead of the G1 Flying Five at The Curragh on Sunday [Sept 10], trainer Kevin Ryan and jockey Tom Eaves talk about the star sprinter who won the race on Irish Champions Weekend in 2020 en route to claiming the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint
As part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge series, the Al Basti Equiworld, Dubai Flying Five Stakes at The Curragh on Sunday [Sept 10] is a ‘Win and You’re In’ qualifier for the $1m Turf Sprint at Santa Anita on November 4
The team behind leading sprint filly Glass Slippers chose not to take up the option of their guaranteed place in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint after she had bolted up in the Prix de l’Abbaye as a three-year-old at Longchamp.
However, the ‘Win And You’re In’ element of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series clearly captured the imagination of trainer Kevin Ryan and owners Bearstone Stud, for at the start of 2020 they plotted a campaign that would take in several such events on the way to Keeneland in November.
They never wavered from that plan, and Glass Slippers duly earned a guaranteed place in the starting gate with victory in the G1 Flying Five at Irish Champions Weekend before a plan hatched more than 12 months previously came to glorious fruition in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint of 2020.
Ryan excels with sprinters, having also enjoyed top-level success with Brando, Desert Lord, Emaraaty Ana and Hello Youmzain, but when Glass Slippers won the Abbaye in 2019, he was already thinking more in the longer term.
“She was only three and we felt that the Breeders’ Cup would come a year too soon for her,” he says. “We wanted to give her more time to mature, but the end target was always the Turf Sprint at Keeneland when we sat down to plan her four-year-old campaign.”
‘She had a big heart’
Glass Slippers was perfectly equipped for the task, as Ryan explains: “She was a filly who gave her all. It’s all right having the talent, but she had a big heart too, and she left it all out on the track. She never saved an ounce for herself.
“She was also a great traveller who never turned a hair, and as the season went on she would get better and better, right into the autumn. That gave us the confidence that she could go to the States at that time of year and put up a good show.”
There are four European races in the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series offering ‘Win And You’re In’ status for the Turf Sprint, and Glass Slippers ran in three of them in 2020.
Bearing in mind she was expected to get better as the year went on her appearance fifth to the ultra-speedy Battaash in Royal Ascot’s King’s Stand Stakes was respectable enough, and she stepped up on that form when second to Battaash in Goodwood’s King George Stakes, which is not part of the series.
The Goodwood second delighted jockey Tom Eaves, who rode Glass Slippers in all but one of her 21 races, and it set her up perfectly for the Derrinstown Stud Flying Five Stakes, the ‘Win And You’re In’ sprint run at The Curragh on day two of Ireland’s showpiece weekend of Flat racing.
Taking up the story, Eaves says: “It was a great run against an exceptional sprinter when Glass Slippers chased home Battaash at Goodwood and we were delighted with her going to The Curragh. Kevin had had her campaign mapped out all year and the ‘Win And You're In’ element was a big part of why she was aimed for the Flying Five.
‘They went quite quick’
“She had a nice draw there near the far rail and they went quite quick. We got a nice tow into the race and the splits came at the right time. Once we got to the front we were always holding Keep Busy and the others. It was a great day, as Covid restrictions had just been lifted.”
A return to Longchamp in a bid for a second win in the Abbaye came next, but circumstances conspired against her.
Eaves says: “When she won the Abbaye at three she had a good draw, absolutely pinged the lids, and travelled really strongly. We weren’t sure she’d like the soft ground but she won really well.
“She was very versatile, but the ground the following year was really bad and we were drawn in the middle of the track, which is a big disadvantage at Longchamp. We did well to go down by just a neck to the French three-year-old Wooded, who was drawn near the rail, and we weren’t put off her chance at Keeneland in the slightest.”
The trip to Kentucky could not have gone any better. “She travelled over great, settled great and trained great throughout the time she was there,” recalls Ryan. “We knew she’d go round a bend very well, as she had won at Chester at two, and that extra half a furlong was massive for her.
‘Opt for the shortest route’
“Tom had a word with Ryan Moore, who told him to take his time and opt for the shortest route.”
Eaves tends to be something of an unsung talent at home, but Moore himself could not have executed the tactics with more skill or daring (as illustrated by the Jockey Cam footage).
In a field of 14, he dropped Glass Slippers in on the fence from stall six, and he did not leave it until the straight, where he switched her off it in order to weave a passage through the prominent racers.
The pair squeezed through the tightest of gaps and became the first European-trained winner of the race with a half-length defeat of US-trained Wet Your Whistle.
“I’d gone out to Keeneland a week early, and when they let us breeze around the grass track she switched leads and went round like she was on rails,” says Eaves. “We knew they’d go quick, of course, and the main thing was to get her in a rhythm.
“I just dropped her down to the fence and rode her for a bit of luck. It was an unbelievable feeling going past the line that day. It was a very special day and one I’ll never forget.
Very special
“She was a massive part of my life and it was a great journey we went on. To finish up winning at the Breeders’ Cup was very special. It was brilliant.”
It was a special day too for Ryan, who had not been able to attend when his only previous Breeders’ Cup runner East had been second at Churchill Downs two years earlier – and also of course for Bearstone Stud owners Terry and Margaret Holdcroft.
“It was a fantastic week,” says Ryan. “The Breeders’ Cup is obviously a very special meeting and the people involved there were so helpful with the logistics of it all. They made it very easy for us all.”
… and after the Breeders’ Cup
Glass Slippers returned to the track as a five-year-old for a near-identical campaign, missing only Royal Ascot’s King’s Stand Stakes, but this time she could finish only third at Goodwood, and third again at The Curragh and Longchamp.
However, she had shown enough to merit another trip to the Breeders’ Cup when beaten only a half-length in the Flying Five, but on much quicker ground in that year’s Turf Sprint at Del Mar, she started slowly and was unable to take advantage of her inside berth in stall one. She finished down the field behind Wesley Ward-trained Golden Pal.
Only the very best has been good enough for Glass Slippers since she returned to the paddocks at Bearstone Stud in Shropshire, where she was born and raised. She visited Dubawi in 2022 and produced a particularly nice colt in the spring; she has since been covered by world #1 sire Frankel.
• Visit the Breeders’ Cup website and the Breeders’ Cup Challenge web page
• Visit the Irish Champions Festival website and the Horse Racing Ireland website
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