Content took the shortest route around the inside of the course to get the better of the strong-traveling Emily Upjohn and You Got To Me to win the Yorkshire Oaks (G1) Aug. 22.
Trained by Aidan O'Brien and ridden by Ryan Moore, Content was keen throughout the first half of the 1 1/2-mile race, but powered down the inside of the track as Emily Upjohn and You Got To Me fought it out down the middle.
Content's chance appeared compromised by her early keenness, with Moore struggling to get the filly to drop her head as stablemate Port Fairy made the running. Emily Upjohn was always sat close to the pace with You Got To Me tracking her.
As the horses swung into the straight, Emily Upjohn was moving ominously well as Port Fairy took the field down the center of the track. That was except Content, who steered closer to the inside rail.
Emily Upjohn had every chance with two furlongs to go but the acceleration did not come when jockey Kieran Shoemark asked for it as they approached the final quarter of a mile. Instead, she just kept galloping while You Got To Me started to eat up the ground.
However, while You Got To Me was able to overhaul Emily Upjohn, on the inside of the course Content was staying on powerfully despite her antics early in the race. At the line, it was another winner for the Coolmore partners, O'Brien, and Moore.
"If she had done everything right she would have won easily," Moore said. "It's taken a while to get her to do things right and she's still not there.
"My only thinking in the race was to try and get her to relax, which I didn't achieve, and then it was a case of making the best of a bad situation. She's a typical Galileo, she's very brave and tried hard."
With the Yorkshire win, Content also achieved the honor of being Galileo's 100th group/grade 1 winner. The late Coolmore stallion, euthanized in 2021, reached the milestone a year after he sired his 99th top-level winner with Warm Heart in the 2023 running of this race.
Content was reversing form with You Got To Me from the Irish Oaks (G1), and O'Brien was keen to praise the filly and the ride given to her by Moore.
"She was unbelievable," he said. "She's come forward since the Curragh when we had a pacemaker who didn't go fast enough for her and the race never opened for her that day.
"Ryan gave her an incredible ride as she's not straightforward or easy. The pace was stronger today and she did keep coming. She was a very brave filly and will be better in a faster-run race."
A group 3 winner as 2-year-old, Content was unplaced in both the French One Thousand Guineas (G1) and Coronation Stake (G1) before turning in admirable runner-up showings in the Pretty Polly Stakes (G1) and Irish Oaks (G1) as the distances grew longer.
Upon victory in the Yorkshire Oaks, a Breeders' Cup Challenge Series event, Content was guaranteed her place in the starting gate with an all-expenses-paid berth to the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf (G1T) at Del Mar Nov. 2. It would be the second Breeders' Cup start for Content, who was fourth in last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T).
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