Guineas Festival 2022: Double for Doyle as Cachet makes all

Guineas Festival 2022: It was a double Classic success for jockey James Doyle as Cachet (16/1) led throughout to win the 2022 Group One QIPCO 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket, on Sunday 1st May.

For Doyle it was a second Classic success in 24 hours following the victory of Coroebus in the QIPCO 2000 Guineas. The 34 year old Doyle becomes the first jockey to win both Guineas in the same year since Ryan Moore in 2015.

The victory of Cachet handed a first Classic success to her 30 year old trainer George Boughey. Boughey, who is based just a stone’s throw from the Rowley Mile at Saffron House Stables on Newmarket’s Hamilton Road, only began training in 2019 having previously worked as assistant to Hugo Palmer. In 2012, he saddled his first Classic runner, Mystery Angel, who was runner-up in the Cazoo Oaks.

For owners Highclere Thoroughbred Racing, this was a first British Classic although its colours were carried to victory in the 2,000 Irish Oaks by Petrushka. Cachet becomes the second syndicate-owned winner of a British Classic, following Motivator’s success for the Royal Ascot Racing Club in the 2005 Derby.

Cachet prepared for the Guineas by winning the Group Three Lanwades Stud Nell Gwyn Stakes on 12th April and becomes the first filly to win both contests since Speciosa in 2006.

A daughter of Aclaim, Cachet was never headed in this contest and held on to win by a neck from the fast-finishing Prosperous Voyage (33/1) with Tuesday a further length and three-quarters back in third. 

George Boughey told ITV Racing: “It’s a very special day – there are a lot of people to thank for getting here but most notably the filly. She’s been a superstar since she walked into the yard and it was always going to be the question of that long final furlong but she got a peach of a ride from James.

“I was always confident (she’d get a mile) – she’s by Aclaim and she’s a superstar. I’m delighted.”

Harry Herbert (Highclere Racing) added: “It’s hard to speak. We won a Classic with Petrushka and in these blue silks it’s been my ambition. I’m not often stuck for words but I am on this occasion!”

Boughey went on to say: “She’s obviously a very good filly and she’s stepped forward from the Nell Gwyn, I think people thought that she was razor fit but I was sure she was a bit short of work.

“It was a long final furlong! She got a peach of a ride from James and she just eyes up every blade of grass on the Rowley Mile, she loves it. She was straight into the dip and gone and they were closing late but there were some very good fillies in behind her – Ralph Beckett’s filly (Prosperous Voyage) stood out to me in the yard out the back and she’s obviously a very good filly as well – but I’m delighted to have held on and it’s a dream come true really.

“I absolutely didn’t think I’d be here so soon, we had four horses two years ago and the highest rated was 62 so to have a filly like her and several others is amazing and to do it for Highclere is amazing. They’ve got a bunch of horses with me now, they’ve got six horses with me and it’s just massive to pay them back so it’s a huge day and very special.

“The question was always going to be whether she stayed, she loves the ground which is a massive part for her and I’d hoped she’d stay. She’s got a really big heart and she’s very straightforward. She’s been a rock of consistency since she came here, she won a maiden almost exactly a year ago and has gone from strength-to-strength really. I think she’ll probably go to Royal Ascot next, but she could go to Ireland or she could go to France but I think she’ll head straight to Ascot.

“It’s a long year and that gives her a nice gap as I’d like to end up at the Breeders’ Cup again at the back end of the year. She’s won the Nell Gwyn and now she’s won the Guineas, it’s a long time until November and there’s lots of options so we’ll have a think about it. She’s a Group One winner over a mile now and she can go anywhere in the world, which is massive.

“The fact that she likes fast ground makes her a global filly which is huge for us and huge for her so it’s very exciting. It sounds bizarre coming out of my mouth! It’s a huge thrill and amazing to find one so early and what a star she is. It’s just bizarre, I dreamt of having a winner at Bath two years ago, let alone the Guineas! That’s no disrespect to Bath at all which has been a great track to me! It’s all come very quick but I’ve built an amazing team around me, there’s too many people to name now but I’ve got some fantastic staff and it makes my job a lot easier. It’s pretty surreal.

“The sky is the limit really with her now, it was obviously an open race but she did it well and there was a distance back to some very good fillies and Group One winners. I said to James to not break her stride and if she goes forward to let her enjoy it and it was a test of stamina, there were some horses who were paddling at three out and I’m not saying that I’d thought it would play out like it did, but it didn’t surprise me.

“She’s been training amazingly and it reminded me of Galileo Gold training into the Guineas when I was at Hugo’s and they were drawn similarly too. I said to James just before to do what he did and let her enjoy it.”

James Doyle said: “I promise I won’t get emotional today! It’s incredible isn’t it? I rode her a couple of times last year and she was Group One placed in the Fillies’ Mile.

“George (Boughey) and I were talking about it beforehand, she seems to be much stronger this year although that last half a furlong took forever! I was praying for the line but she’s all guts and she loves this track. She really puts the race to bed between the three and the two (furlong poles) and we were clinging on late on.

“A special thank you to George – obviously he has a young, growing team but he’s doing amazing things and I think he’s a name we’ll be hearing a lot about in the future.” 

Doyle went on to add: “I am not quite as emotional as yesterday but I really just got the chance to enjoy today. We knew she kind of wears her heart of her sleeve and knows this track inside out, so I felt as long as we could get those cheap sectionals midway – which it felt like we’d got – I could be brave and let her use her stride into the dip. She goes through it so well that it’s almost like she eyes it up from a way out and she really let rip through it, so it was just a case of hoping she’d hang on to the line. As we know the mile was a little bit too far for her last year but George certainly thought that she’d developed enough through the winter that she’d hit the line much better than she did as a two year old and it came just in time.

“Obviously I lost the ride on her, I rode her a couple of times in the back end of last year and she went to America and quite understandably the owners wanted to use an American jockey and it was great to see her run a great race. I was looking forward to riding her in her trial and obviously it didn’t work out but it’s the way things go and I’ve been lucky enough to jump back on her today and it’s just amazing really.

“It’s incredible and I have to say yesterday was just incredible, I’ve ridden some big winners around the world but I’ve never felt a feeling like that. The closest to the atmosphere that I’d felt before that was probably Big Orange’s victory in the Gold Cup (at Royal Ascot) which was an incredible day, but it was very close to that if not a touch better.

“It just feels like a complete blur and whirlwind at the minute. Obviously I knew what she could do but it was just how she would see out the mile as a three year old, George has trained her to absolute perfection and she’s hit the line when she needed to. I was thinking that something was going to pick me up any second (coming out of the dip) and my dreams would be over but thankfully she’s so tough and she was well seasoned as a two year old, which I think stood her in really good stead. She knows this track really well and has run here plenty of times as well.

“It’s very funny how things work out, this game is a hard one in that sometimes it can be so ruthless and it can be tough on you and other times when the cards fall in the right direction they fall in your favour as we’ve seen today. I’ve been lucky enough to pick the ride back up on this filly so it’s been amazing.

“I started off as amateur when I was 16 and still in school, I remember doing one of my French GCSE exams and I had to run around the corner to the racetrack afterwards! It’s amazing how hard the Classics are to get, so for two to come along like they have and so smoothly as well, I couldn’t have wished for things to have gone as well as they did. I was thinking that perhaps Silvestre on Flash Betty in stall one would be leading us and when we popped out he wasn’t there and I was quite happy to do our own thing and nobody really tackled me through the mid part of the race – so it just worked out absolutely beautifully really.

“To have these big crowds back and to feel the racing atmosphere like it once was is just incredible and it’s something that my mother has always said to me. I remember winning on Cityscape she didn’t feel that I quite took in everything and that’s why yesterday I just took myself off on my own on Coroebus when I pulled up just to have a moment to really reflect on it. That was probably why I got quite emotional actually.

“It would be great to do the quintuple but you can’t be too greedy can you. We’ll take this on board and whatever will be will be.”

The QIPCO 1,000 Guineas is part of the QIPCO British Champions Series.