King’s Chapel: Thurlow Running In Gr1 Blue Diamond

King’s Chapel is the broodmare sire of Sebring filly Thurlow, who lines up in the Gr1 Blue Diamond Stakes on Saturday in Australia. She is out of one of King’s Chapel’s best progeny produced to date, Princess Emmy.

Gr1 Blue Diamond Stakes contender Thurlow will figure in a gear switch for the $1 million race.

Blinkers will be replaced by a visor when Thurlow lines up in Melbourne’s premier two-year-old event at Caulfield on 28 February. Trainer Robert Smerdon and jockey Craig Williams decided on a gear switch after the filly won a Sandown 800-metre jump-out on Tuesday morning.

“She’s thrived since her Gr3 win, the jump-out was good, her action was good and she’s earned her place in the field.

Craig Williams has the mount on Sebring filly Thurlow who has won two of her three career starts to date and pays $26 in the latest Blue Diamond Stakes odds.

On debut at Flemington during last spring’s Melbourne Cup Carnival the progressive sprinter was a close second to the John O’Shea-trained Antelucan in the Group 3 Emirates Airline Plate (1000m).

She has won both of her subsequent starts, Williams aboard for all three runs, with the Listed Merson Cooper Stakes (1000m) at Sandown-Hillside last November and the Group 3 Chairman’s Stakes (1000m) first-up at the same track.

While her class and form are unquestionable, the Blue Diamond Stakes will be Thurlow’s first look at further than 1000m, and how she handles the step up in distance will be key to her chances.

“On (Melbourne) Cup Day, at her first start, she got carted off the track and into the ground that we didn’t want and got beaten a neck,” Smerdon said. She then won the Merson Cooper Stakes and then, off a break, first-up she won the Chairman’s Stakes.

“She had only had a soft, half-mile trial before that so she went into that with a bit of improvement to come. You know, she can’t do more than what she has been doing and has earned her opportunity.”

King’s Chapel’s first South African crop are hitting the racetracks. From five runners to date he has had a winner with City Express, and four places.

His New Zealand runners continue to perform and in the last two weeks, King Prawn winning the Castledale Summer Cup over 1600m, a win from Ohope Prince(NZ) over 1600m, whilst Double Blue and King Montrose both finished second in Handicap’s over 1200m on 20 February, with Notionannagins(NZ) also running second over 1850m.

King’s Chapel is by King Of Kings, who passed away earlier this week at The Fort Stud. UK racing publication, Racing Post, reported this week that King Of Kings was the first Gr1 2000 Guineas winner for trainer Aiden O’ Brien, who once described King Of Kings as “simply breathtaking”.

King’s Chapel stood for a fee of R15 000 during the 2014 season at Bush Hill Stud.