Blackbeard gains Breeders' Cup berth with Prix Morny win

Ireland-bred Blackbeard showed his class to win the Group 1 Prix Morny for 2-year-olds at Deauville on Sunday. The victory secured Blackbeard a guaranteed start in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint through the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series.

The international series consists of 82 stakes races whose winners receive automatic starting positions and fees paid into a corresponding race of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, which will be held at Keeneland on Nov. 4 and 5.

Owned by Derrick Smith, Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor and Westerberg and trained by Aidan O’Brien, Blackbeard scored his first Group 1 success when powering to victory in the Prix Morny. Settled on the inside rail under jockey Ryan Moore, Blackbeard was prominent throughout the race before knuckling down in the closing stages to hold off Persian Force and win by a half-length. Aidan O’Brien’s other runner in the race, The Antarctic, finished 1 1/2 lengths behind in third.

A bay son of No Nay Never out of the Born To Sea mare Muirin, Blackbeard completed the 6 furlongs in 1:09:91 over a course listed as good. Blackbeard improved his record to five wins and seven starts, which includes a victory in the Prix Robert Papin (G2) at Chantilly in his previous start on July 17. Blackbeard also becomes the second horse to gain an automatic berth into the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint this year, joining Norfolk Stakes (G2) winner The Ridler, who finished last of the five runners in Sunday’s race.

O’Brien, celebrating his Prix Morny win, said: "We’re very happy with him. He always feels like he has a little bit more, but he (Ryan) was delighted with him. He’s a proper fast, early, mature 2-year-old; he jumps and takes loads of racing."

Both the seven-furlong Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere (G1) at ParisLongchamp, a win-and-you're-in for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (G1), and the six-furlong Juddmonte Middle Park Stakes (G1) at Newmarket are now under consideration for Blackbeard, with O’Brien adding: “Blackbeard’s obviously very speed orientated, he might get further but he has a lot of speed. He would have the option to come back (to France) for the Group 1 (Lagardere) or the Middle Park, so I think all those races are options for him."