Beautiful Romance To Royal Ascot After Middleton Stakes Victory

Beautiful Romance was the game winner of the G2 Betfred Middleton Stakes on her return to action at York, UK, on Thursday, May 12 and will now go for Royal Ascot glory.

The four-year-old New Approach filly, trained by Saeed bin Suroor and ridden by James Doyle, was well away among the seven runners before being settled in fourth towards the outside as Ballybacka Queen set the pace.

She progressed through the field in the straight after passing the three-furlong marker, taking third and then second.

Beautiful Romance went into the lead with over a furlong remaining and ran on gamely to win convincingly by a length and a quarter from Koora, with James Doyle able to take things easily close home. Her time over the extended 10 furlongs on ground described as good to firm, good in places, was 2m 8.85s.

Her previous start came in the 12-furlong G1 QIPCO British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes at Ascot in October, when she stayed on to finish third behind the winner Simple Verse and second Journey, who finished third today.

John Ferguson, Chief Executive and Racing Manager of Godolphin, said: "Beautiful Romance is a lovely, relaxed daughter of New Approach.

"We have watched her develop over the winter and she has become a machine.

"Saeed was so careful with her in 2015 - we wouldn't have run her on this ground last season - but she is bigger, stronger and better this year.

"Our patience is paying off, and that is wonderful to see. It was hard to be too confident today because she is a little bit lazy at home and doesn't do a huge amount, so it was a question of whether she was fit enough to really do herself justice.

"She could go for the Prince Of Wales's Stakes (G1, 10f, June 15) at Royal Ascot and has proved today that she can go on this ground.

"We have to consider races like that - she has shown that she has improved from three to four and the question now is how much has she improved?

"She has matured and developed - she is now a professional. I genuinely believe that she is a G1 filly and it is now down to finding the right race for her."

Saeed bin Suroor commented: "Beautiful Romance is very good."She has run a huge race today and the next target will be Royal Ascot where she could run in the Prince Of Wales's Stakes or the Hardwicke Stakes (G2, 12f, June 18).

"We always thought she wanted soft, so we deliberated long and hard about running today. I said to James just give her every chance and the more you ask the more you get.

"She'll go on any ground now, but I still think she prefers good to soft."

James Doyle added: "Beautiful Romance had been training great and it is nice to have a good clean run with her.

"She ran well in the Nell Gwyn last year and had a few niggly problems, so we were always on the back foot.

"She is so laidback, I had to wake her up a little bit in the race. We went steady enough but she is certainly not slow, so I was mindful of the early pace. We got there a touch soon, so I had to keep her up to it.

"Hopefully, we can have a lot more fun with her. She has good form on soft ground but I galloped her on good to firm ground a couple of weeks ago and she went really well on it. I think she is very versatile and she didn't mind the going it at all today."