See The Fire primed to go one better than last year at Goodwood

Andrew Balding’s See The Fire will vie to go on better than last year in Goodwood’s Visit Qatar Nassau Stakes, with victory likely to make the Breeders’ Cup a tempting possibility at the end of the season.

The four-year-old was beaten a neck by Opera Singer when second in the Group One last season, and proved she had gone from strength to strength over the winter when winning the Middleton Stakes at York by 12 lengths in May.

Her most recent run was a fine third in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, and another bid for the Nassau now looks her next step as Balding seeks to pave the way to the Breeders’ Cup.

He said: “She’s a beautifully-bred filly, by Sea The Stars, who won a Juddmonte International, out of Arabian Queen, who also won a Juddmonte International.

“She’s always looked a very smart filly. As a three-year-old, we didn’t really see the best of her until we got to the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood, where she was narrowly beaten.”

Of her last run Balding, added: “We thought she ran a super race at Ascot, against the boys, in the Prince of Wales’s. She’s had a little break since then with the view to preparing her for the Nassau again, and hopefully going one better than we did last year.

“The Prince of Wales’s this year was run at a ferocious gallop and it suited the closers. In hindsight, we rode her to sit in behind Los Angeles, and focus on beating him, which left us vulnerable at the end of the race. Having said that, they’re top-class horses and we might not have beaten them whatever we’d done.

“It was still a career-best performance, and she’ll have an easier time, you’d have thought, against her own sex, in the Nassau. It’s never easy at Group One level, but she’s going there in great shape.”

The Nassau Stakes serves as a ‘Win and You’re In’ qualifier for the Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf, granting the winner an automatic fees-paid berth into the $2million contest at Del Mar in November.

“The win and you’re in incentive is very important for any owner, it certainly pushes the Breeders’ Cup to the forefront of your priorities,” Balding said of the prospect of heading to California.

“The Breeders’ Cup is a hugely important meeting worldwide, but it does come at the end of a long season so it really depends on how she is training at the end of the season, and what happens between now and then, but it’s very much on the shortlist for our autumn campaign.

“It would be lovely to think one day we would have a horse good enough to be competitive in a Breeders’ Cup race, we’ve had a couple of runners so far but no joy, so it’s something very much that we are striving to achieve.”