Magical Zoe wins Ebor Handicap to send Henry de Bromhead into dreamland

Ireland’s jumps trainers have given their British counterparts a thorough mauling at Cheltenham and Aintree in recent seasons. Their dominance extended to one of the Flat season’s showpiece events for the second year running as Henry de Bromhead’s six-year-old mare Magical Zoe, who finished fourth in the County Hurdle at Cheltenham in March, landed a gamble in the Ebor Handicap after being backed down to 11-2 favourite.
De Bromhead’s success in the £500,000 highlight of the Ebor festival followed a victory in the same race 12 months ago for Willie Mullins, the current champion trainer over jumps in both Britain and Ireland, and Magical Zoe’s backers were counting their winnings from the moment she swept into the lead under Billy Lee with just over a furlong to run. The 25-1 outsiders Kihavah and Oneforthegutter were next over the line, with Epic Poet (10-1) running on for fourth.
De Bromhead is one of a handful of trainers to have won the four biggest events on the British jumping calendar – the Grand National, Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and Champion Chase – but his Flat operation is on a much smaller scale and Magical Zoe was only his fourth winner on the Flat in Britain.
“I’m delighted with that, Billy was brilliant,” De Bromhead said. “It’s a race you grow up watching, I probably never dreamed I could win it, but here we are and we have. The lads that own her [Patrick and Scott Bryceland] were always keen to go on the Flat, they said to start at the Ebor and work our way back and it’s incredible that it’s gone to plan.
“We had to have our three runs [to qualify for a handicap mark], we were slightly on the back foot for that and we had to have them by 20 July but it all fell into place.
“With good horses, everything is a fraction easier. I love training good horses and training winners, but to come to a big meeting like this and have a winner here is the stuff you dream of.”
Magical Zoe is now qualified for the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Park on 5 November under a “win and you’re in” scheme, and an ambitious attempt to win Australia’s most famous race is a distinct possibility. “I know that Paddy wanted to go to Melbourne so we’ll see,” De Bromhead said. “We have a win and you’re in so now we really have to start thinking about that. That’s a possibility, absolutely.”
There was a sad postscript to the race, however, as Harry Eustace’s five-year-old gelding Crystal Delight suffered a fatal injury on the back straight. Tom Marquand was unseated but emerged unscathed.
Magical Zoe can be backed at a high of 20-1 for the Melbourne Cup with Paddy Power, in a market headed by Mullins’s Vauban, the winner of the Lonsdale Cup here on Friday.
Breege, a 33-1 chance, was the unexpected winner of the afternoon’s main supporting event, the Group Two City Of York Stakes, beating another outsider, the 22-1 shot Vafortino, to the £284,000 first prize as Audience, the 4-7 favourite, ran well below form in fourth.
It was an underwhelming outcome for the track, which is keen for the race to be promoted to Group One status, as the classy Kinross was scratched earlier in the afternoon before Lake Forest, the second-favourite, was also withdrawn at the start after getting upset in the stalls.
For John Quinn, however, who now trains in partnership with his son, Sean, it was the second-biggest win of his long career in prize-money terms, just shy of the £302,000 purse when Highfield Princess won the Nunthorpe at this meeting two years ago.
“We worked her on Monday morning and she worked particularly well,” Sean Quinn said. “John said that was the best he’s ever seen her work. This probably wasn’t the plan at that stage, but he said, we’ll take her down the road as there’s a heap of money on offer and we’re going to try to get as much of it as we can.
“All the big seven-furlong races [are possibilities for her next start]. She’s not in the Forêt [at Longchamp on Arc weekend] but we might have to speak to her owners about supplementing her for it.”