Racing: Eswarah proved too much for the strong Irish team in the Vodafone Oaks, but Aidan O'Brien and Kieren Fallon still enjoyed a pre-Derby Group One boost at Epsom yesterday as Yeats landed the Coronation Cup.
The lightly raced colt made all the running under a canny Fallon ride to beat the favourite, Alkaased, by two and a half lengths.
It was a perfect eve-of-Derby success for the Ballydoyle team who had blue riband hopes for Yeats last year only for muscle problems to force a dramatic withdrawal just days before the race.
"I maybe over-trained him a bit last year, which could have caused the problems," said O'Brien, who was winning the big older-horse prize for the first time. "This year we have been much more patient and we've decided to let the races bring him on."
Fallon credited the trainer with the decision to control the race from the front, but the jockey carried out his instructions perfectly.
"Those were my instructions. Aidan said if no one wanted to go on I was to let him bowl along. And around here the best place to be can be the front," Fallon said.
"He stuck at it very well and is obviously a very good horse."
The same comment was being widely used about Eswarah before the Oaks, but the daughter of the 1986 winner Midway Lady lived up to her reputation and pedigree with a gutsy defeat of Something Exciting.
Pictavia did best of the five-strong Irish team in third, and Virginia Waters, who started joint-favourite with the winner, faded to fourth, a place ahead of stable companion Silk And Scarlet.
"He mother was very good, but this filly is exceptional. She has been training beautifully," said the winning trainer, Michael Jarvis. "I thought he had come too soon, but in fact it probably turned out to be the winning move."
The "he" was jockey Richard Hills, who explained: "It all went pretty much to plan. I was conscious of not being stuck on the inner, because she has had only two runs and I didn't want her bumped about."
David Elsworth, the trainer of the runner-up, said simply: "I thought we were coming to win but the other filly outstayed us."
Dermot Weld's Dream To Dress was well supported in the betting and was prominent early in the straight before fading to eighth.
Jim Bolger, trainer of Pictavia, said: "It was a good run but she didn't quite come down the hill all that well. The Irish Oaks figures in my plans big-time. We have it all to do to reverse the placings, but we will give it a go."
