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Aidan O’Brien’s Content provided super sire Galileo with his 100th individual Group 1 winner when battling on bravely to land the Yorkshire Oaks at York on Thursday.
The daughter of Galileo raced keenly throughout the mile-and-a-half Group 1 contest in the hands of Ryan Moore, but she found plenty for pressure when asked to fight off her Irish Oaks conqueror You Got To Me.
Emily Upjohn travelled powerfully in the hands of Kieran Shoemark and looked to be going best entering the final quarter of a mile. However, when asked to go and win her race by Shoemark it quickly became apparent that both You Got To Me, who was situated towards the middle of the track with John and Thady Gosden's filly, and Content remained firmly in contention.
Moore had steered his filly around the shortest route on the Knavesmire and despite her early antics, Content was able to find in abundance, fending off her challengers by three-quarters of a length.
Ralph Beckett's Irish Oaks heroine You Got To Me fought on bravely to deny Emily Upjohn of the silver medal spot, but neither was a match for the Ballydoyle contender, who made it back-to-back Group 1 features for team Coolmore following City Of Troy's sensational Juddmonte International success.
"If she had done everything right, she would have won easily," explained Moore. "It's taken a while to get her to do things right and she's still not there.
"My only thinking in the race was to try and get her to relax, which I didn't achieve, and then it was a case of making the best of a bad situation. She's a typical Galileo, she's very brave and tried hard."
"She was unbelievable," said O'Brien, who was winning the Yorkshire Oaks for a staggering eighth time. " She ran over a mile and a quarter on Irish Derby weekend to see if she'd get a mile and a half and finished behind two good older fillies. Ryan (Moore) came in and said no doubt.
"She's come forward since the Curragh and every time we stepped her up in trip, we thought she'd improve. We had a pacemaker at the Curragh who didn't go fast enough for her and the race never opened for her that day.
"Ryan gave her an incredible ride as she's not straightforward or easy. He did an incredible job to try and get her to relax. The pace was stronger today and she did keep coming. She was a very brave filly and will be better in a faster-run race and even a better race."
Paddy Power introduced Content at 16/1 for the Arc in October, for which she would need to be supplemented, and O'Brien revealed that it was certainly a possibility she could head to Longchamp.
"She could go to one of the fillies' (Arc) trials, she could go to an Arc or a Vermeille or to America. She's definitely going to be better where the pace is strong, wherever that is, as she is still racing in a gear too high. When she gets into a gear which has other horses out of their comfort zone, she will be comfortable, and it will be amazing to see what she can do off that kind of pace."
The success was a 100th individual Group 1 winner for her sire Galileo, who will have just a possible thirteen two-year-olds on the ground next season. "He's incredible," O'Brien said of his champion sire. "He came along after Sadler's Wells, and we know what he's done. It's just the instinct not to give up and we saw that again today, for the filly (Content) to do what she did was incredible.
"They are so determined and so genuine. They just keep coming and don't know when to stop. They will empty the tank totally and few horses of other breeds will do that."
