Lake Victoria maintains unbeaten record in Moyglare Stud Stakes as favourite Bedtime Story finishes last

Lake Victoria was catapulted to the head of the betting for the 2025 fillies' Classics after capitalising on her stablemate Bedtime Story's capitulation by belatedly stamping her authority all over a rip-roaring Moyglare Stud Stakes. 

With just 50 yards to run, the five runners in the €400,000 Group 1 were heading to the line in complete unison, but that picture was a work in progress. Wayne Lordan had by then got Lake Victoria at full tilt having dropped her out early on, and she swooped a length and a quarter clear to punctuate the race with a definitive statement that seemed unlikely milliseconds earlier. 

The daughter of Frankel was extending her unbeaten run to three after a course-and-distance maiden win in June ahead of last month's decisive win in the Sweet Solera Stakes at Newmarket.

Having broke sharply, the odds-on Bedtime Story raced too keenly under Ryan Moore in front. She wilted late to finish last of the quintet, and was reported to be lame post-race. The Ollie Sangster-trained Simmering short-headed the other Ballydoyle runner Exactly for second, with Ger Lyons's Red Letter another head back in fourth. 

Lake Victoria's triumph smacked of class, and it also crowned Lordan's comeback from serious injury a day after he was thwarted in similar circumstances aboard Illinois by Jan Brueghel in the St Leger. When you ride as number two to O'Brien, the chance of compensation is not usually far away, although this was Lordan's first success at the highest level since he won the 2020 Tattersalls Gold Cup aboard Magical.

In the meantime, he has succeeded Seamie Heffernan as Ballydoyle's de facto second choice. His progress was stymied by a horrendous fall from San Antonio in last year's Irish Derby, rendering him unconscious and sidelining for eight months with fractures to his legs and elbow, as well as a nasty laceration to his arm. 

"I'm delighted for Wayne," O'Brien said after recording his tenth win in the race. "He is a great fella and does a lot of work day in, day out at home.

"We're lucky to have him here after the Irish Derby incident. He had a tough time for four or five months so nobody deserves it more."

Lake Victoria (right) charges home for victory at the Irish Champions FestivalCredit: Patrick McCann

Of Lake Victoria, who returned an SP of 11-2, O'Brien said he had an eye on the Cheveley Park Stakes ahead of this. "That's what we had in our head coming here," he added. "We thought she'd be second to the other filly here and then go there, and that's still a possibility. She is very classy, she is fast. She is by Frankel but she is made like a sprinter."

The winner is now 5-1 clear favourite (from 12-1) for the 1,000 Guineas with Paddy Power, and she is 8-1 from 20-1 with the same firm for the Oaks.  

For Bedtime Story, the key will be getting her to switch off. Like her recent Yorkshire Oaks-winning sister Content, the daughter of Mecca's Angel tends to race with the choke out. 

"I thought we did the right thing from Ascot with Bedtime Story, dropping her in and taking her time, but that's obviously in her, this sprinting instinct. Content was the same but we'll get her back," O'Brien said. 

"She just hit the gates and Ryan couldn't get her back and that was it."

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