Qipco British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes (Group 1)

DAVID Menuisier had never trained a domestic Group 1 winner, or indeed a winner of any description at Ascot before this meeting, but he put that right in spectacular fashion as Wonderful Tonight built on the excellent form she’d been showing in France by winning the Champion Fillies & Mares Stakes in comprehensive fashion, justifying 4/1 favouritism in the process under a confident William Buick.

Travelled strongly

A little keen early, she travelled notably strongly through the race, and was sent to the front fully three furlongs out. She galloped on strongly to hold market rival Dame Malliot (Ed Vaughan/Hollie Doyle) by two and a half lengths, with Aidan O’Brien’s Passion (Ryan Moore) a further length behind in third. This was William Buick’s first Champions Day winner, incidentally.

Wonderful Tonight, owned and named in typical style by music industry mogul Chris Wright, was backing up her win in the Group 1 Prix de Royallieu at the Arc meeting a fortnight earlier, and had gained her previous wins in a Saint-Cloud maiden and in the Group 3 Prix Minerve at Deauville in August, so it was gratifying to see her show that level of form on British soil for the first time.

It paid to be handy all day at Ascot, and the Ger Lyons-trained Irish Oaks winner Even So was better than the bare result in fifth place, having to make her effort from further back than ideal.

Aidan O’Brien’s Laburnum had split the first and second in the Prix Vermeille on her previous start, but that race was run on much quicker ground, and she seemed ill-suited by conditions here, trailing home one from last.

David Menuisier said: “I am so tired; I think I pushed harder than William riding the filly! I am absolutely thrilled. She is a champion. I feel so lucky and blessed. We bought her at the sales as a yearling for next to nothing and here she is winning her second Group 1 in two weeks. The only question mark was whether she had recuperated from the Arc weekend or not. I hadn’t, but I am glad she did!

“She is top-class all round. She is easy to train and as tough as anything. She is getting better and better, and there is still some improvement to come. She is still a tad keen early on so, once she really knows how to settle, I think she can go up a notch again. You never know, especially with fillies, whether they are going to train on or not, but we wanted to keep her as a four-year-old to target the Arc next year. We nearly ran her in the Arc this year – I think she would have run a stormer but she wasn’t a Group 1 winner yet.” Now she is, so the sky is the limit.”