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Following his breakthrough QIPCO 2000 Guineas success last year with Galileo Gold, trainer Hugo Palmer is set to bid for a second British Classic triumph with Unforgetable Filly in the Group 1 £500,000 QIPCO 1000 Guineas at Newmarket’s Rowley Mile Racecourse on Sunday, 7th May.
Unforgetable Filly made a highly promising seasonal debut last week when finishing three-quarters of a length second behind another leading QIPCO 1000 Guineas candidate, Daban, in the Group 3 Lanwades Stud Nell Gwyn Stakes over seven furlongs of the Rowley Mile.
And 36-year-old Palmer, who also has an entry in Saturday, 6th May’s Group 1 £500,000 QIPCO 2000 Guineas in the shape of the Listed winner, Escobar, is pleased with the way Unforgetable Filly has reacted in the five days since that outing.
The QIPCO 2000 Guineas and QIPCO 1000 Guineas are the first two of 35 races which make up the 2017 QIPCO British Champions Series. The Series culminates with QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday, 21st October.
Hugo Palmer, trainer of Unforgetable Filly and Escobar, said:
“Unforgetable Filly’s run in the Nell Gwyn has really brought her on and jockey James Doyle felt that she ran like a horse who would improve for the step up to a mile, even though her pedigree does not necessarily suggest that will be the case. James felt that she just got tired in the closing stages.”
“She looked very wintery beforehand and she had a good long blow afterwards, which gives me hope that she is capable of a lot of improvement. She is very tough and loves fast ground.”
“With my only previous Nell Gwyn runner, New Providence in 2015, beaten a head into second place], we treated it as her Guineas and trained her accordingly.”
“I was considering doing that again with Unforgetable Filly until former Derby-winning jockey Michael Hills dissuaded me and insisted that we must treat the Nell Gwyn as just a trial for her, so that’s what we have done.”
“Escobar had a gallop on the Rowley Mile last week but we didn’t learn a lot as Frankie Dettori felt that he was not comfortable going down into the dip.”
“He is behind my other horses in terms of the condition of his coat and, while it is not impossible that he will go for the QIPC0 Guineas, and horses can change very quickly at this time of year, he may be more likely to go to France.”
“We rate him really highly, but I still count my lucky stars about what a dream run into the race we had last year with Galileo Gold, everything went perfectly both before and during the race, and it hasn’t been like that with Escobar.”
“The QIPCO 2000 Guineas is one of those races that you always dream about winning and now that I have won it I just want to try to win it again.”
