Horse of the Year Probabeel invited to run in Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot

Multiple Group 1-winning mare Probabeel, voted Horse of the Year in New Zealand in 2021, could test her mettle for the first time in the northern hemisphere at Royal Ascot in June.

Trained by Jamie Richards, the four-time Group 1 winner is preparing for her final campaign in Melbourne later this month in a likely repeat of 12 months ago, when she won the Group 3 Geoffrey Bellmaine Stakes and Group 1 Futurity Stakes at Caulfield.

Probabeel has never run outside her native New Zealand or Australia but the option is on the table to bring her to Royal Ascot in the summer where she has been invited to compete in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes.

Any trip to Britain will depend on how easy travel is with New Zealand’s border currently closed to all but a handful of citizens able to get a quarantine slot, an issue that may prevent owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay of Cambridge Stud from being able to make the journey.

Cambridge Stud chief executive Henry Plumptre said: “At the moment the focus for Probabeel is the Futurity and the All-Star Mile in Melbourne and then depending on which way prime minister [Jacinda] Ardern goes with the borders, Probabeel will either go to Sydney for the Queen Of The Turf and then finish, or she will go to the UK.”

He added: “We’ve been talking to Nick Smith at Ascot and we have an invitation to run in the Queen Anne Stakes on the opening day of Royal Ascot.”

Enzo's Lad: the last New Zealander to run at Royal AscotCredit: Edward Whitaker

The black and gold checks of the Lindsays were carried to victory in the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee at Royal Ascot by Hello Youmzain in 2020 but the owners were unable to be on course owing to the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

There have been a couple of New Zealand representatives at Royal Ascot over the years, most recently Enzo’s Lad in 2019 who twice had a rear view of Blue Point in the King’s Stand and Diamond Jubilee.

Before that, the mare Seachange, trained by Graeme Sanders, finished 12th in the Golden Jubilee in 2008 but did go on to finish fourth in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket.

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