Inspiral was often first to the paddock fence to weigh up visitors as a confident weanling at Cheveley Park Stud, she has since been first past the post in six Group 1 races, and now she is about to attempt to become the first horse to win the storied G1 Prix Jacques le Marois three times.
The John and Thady Gosden-trained mare currently sits among a group of four brilliant milers that have won the race two times each: the great Miesque, Spinning World, and another star from her home stable, Palace Pier.
The Cheveley Park homebred has not been at her best this year though. She started her campaign in May with a sub-par defeat in the G1 Lockinge Stakes, and has raced only once since, when sixth behind Auguste Rodin in the G1 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes in June.
But such is her character that connections are not willing to accept she has not ‘trained on’ or that, as a five-year-old, she might just have had enough of racing. Not yet, anyway. A sensible dose of measured optimism is being kept.
“She’s definitely got a little bit of spark about her that some of these great fillies do have,” said Chris Richardson, Cheveley Park Stud’s managing director. “She doesn’t suffer fools lightly, but if you walk into the box and you treat her with respect, she’s as sweet as a nut.
“As a yearling she was a filly that would rush up to the fence to say hello, she was always interested in what was going on. When she comes back to the stud each year for a bit of a holiday, if you pop to see her, she immediately pricks her ears and wants to come and have a chat. I think that’s her character.
“She’s definitely her own person and she’s always been that way from the day she was born. She was certainly the sort of filly in the paddock that wanted to dictate and was prepared to take on any of the colts that she was growing up with before being weaned.”
Inspiral has taken on ‘the colts’ in races seven times and has beaten them twice, both times in the Prix Jacques le Marois at Deauville, France’s summertime mile major. There is perhaps something about a trip across the English Channel to the Normandy coast in August that sits particularly well with her.
“She seems to perform well on that track and enjoys the course so we’re hoping we’ll see a bit of a turnaround in fortune,” Richardson told Idol Horse.
“The last couple of years she really seemed to thrive in the summer, so the owner Mrs Patricia Thompson, while she was happy to run in the Lockinge, she was very much thinking that we should be holding up until June and then going into July. But we gave her a run at Newbury in the spring and she flattered to deceive, but I think she’s a filly that does thrive on warm weather later in the season, so we weren’t disappointed there.
“Audience won that race for us, which was very nice too. He kicked from the start and was meant to help her along, but she was slow away and found herself 10 lengths behind the pace. It was just a bit of a non-event really.”
After that she stepped up to 10 furlongs at Royal Ascot, the distance at which she had won the G1 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf the previous autumn, but she was never a factor.
“That turned into a really strong test of stamina at that distance at Ascot and she just didn’t get home. Once again, she sort of fluffed the start, which didn’t help, and found herself a long way back,” Richardson noted.
“She seems in good form now though and she came out of that last race well.”
If Inspiral runs her race and shows Gosden and the Cheveley Park team that she still has what it takes, there are options beyond the Jacques le Marois that could come into consideration, but a journey to Del Mar to defend the Breeders’ Cup title she won at Santa Anita last year is not at the top of the list.
“I wouldn’t say it’s off the radar but I’m not convinced Del Mar is a priority on her programme this year,” Richardson said. “We enjoyed seeing her flying at the finish last year and we did the same thing eight years ago with Queen’s Trust winning the Filly & Mare Turf at Santa Anita in what was a similar race, if you compare the two.
“Then we went back to Del Mar the year after and Queen’s Trust finished fifth. It just didn’t quite suit and I would be concerned that a mile and three (furlongs), on that particular track, might not be ideal for Inspiral. I think there are other options: the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Champions Day, if we wanted to stay at a mile at Ascot and try that option, but obviously we’ll see how things unravel.”
Inspiral’s only off-day last year came in the G1 Sussex Stakes at Goodwood when the ground was softer than she likes. At Ascot on Champions Day, the ground is rarely anything but rain-softened, as it was when she was sixth in the 2022 QEII, but Richardson is optimistic that this time the event might be due some drier weather.
“We’ve had such a wet spring, who knows what the weather might be like then? It’s a week earlier (than usual) and if we got a sort of an ‘Indian Summer’ in the autumn, it might be a consideration,” he said.
In the meantime, it’s a case of “taking it race by race” with Inspiral, who will go full circle and retire to the Cheveley Park Stud paddocks at the season’s end.
“We’re very lucky to have a lovely broodmare band that numbers 85 at the moment, and to have that quality of mare joining is always exciting,” Richardson said.
“We’ll sit down and make some plans, and look at the various stallion options, but we haven’t finalised that yet. I suspect she’ll stay in England and won’t go travelling to (be covered in) America or anything like that. I think we’ll keep her close to home.”
But for the time being she is still a racehorse, a fourth-generation daughter of the Cheveley Park programme doing what she was bred to do. For Richardson, Thompson, and the Gosdens, the focus is that third Prix Jacques le Marois and a hoped-for historic win that would set a tough benchmark for any future miler to match.
“It would be special,” added Richardson. “It’s a wonderful race and the ideal spot for her at this point. We’ll let her do the talking.”
