Having dominated National Hunt racing for two decades, Willie Mullins has diversified to target some of the Flat’s biggest staying prizes in recent seasons and Love Me Tender (3.35), a lightly raced four-year-old, can give the stable a third win in the last four runnings of the Ebor Handicap as York’s festival meeting concludes on Saturday.
Like Absurde, the 2023 winner, and Ethical Diamond, who took the Ebor 12 months ago and went on to land the Breeders’ Cup Turf, Love Me Tender will run in the pink and white silks of the HOS syndicate, but he has yet to carry the colours in public, having been recruited to the Mullins stable after three runs for Peter Schiergen in 2025.
Love Me Tender was fourth in a Listed race at Chantilly on his final start for Schiergen, form that has enabled him to creep into Saturday’s race at the bottom of the weights.
The four-year-old remains unexposed at staying trips, William Buick is booked to ride and he will have been primed to the minute as Mullins looks to become the first trainer for more than a century to win the Ebor four times.
York 1.50 James Doyle, Wathnan Racing’s No 1 rider, is aboard Damysus, the likely favourite, but the operation’s second-string, Archivist, posted a career-best to land the Golden Mile at Goodwood last time and is an interesting 16-1 shot up in grade.
Chester 2.05 Asuka is an obvious favourite on ratings and potential but poorly drawn in stall 12 and the veteran Rhoscolyn, in stall one, is a tempting each-way alternative at around 10-1. He has dropped 7lb in the weights since the start of the season and is at his best with some cut in the ground.
York 2.25 No more than two or three of the 17 runners can be ruled out with confidence, but Andrew Balding’s string remains in exceptional form and Mythical Bay may be up to defying a 5lb rise for a narrow win at Newmarket last month.
Chester 2.40 Not a strong Listed contest by any means and By The Book has shown more than enough in an injury-plagued career to suggest that he is up to the task.
York 3.00 Ten Bob Tony’s 50-1 win in the Queen Anne Stakes in June looked like a freak due to a pace collapse but he backed it up by finishing fourth in the Sussex Stakes next time and a similar pace scenario looks likely here.
York 4.10 The Stewards’ Cup winner, Evening Saigon, has the ideal draw and run-style to follow up his Goodwood success from a 4lb higher mark.
Bacio blasts to Nunthorpe Stakes success at York
His name is the Italian for a kiss but there is little delicacy or tenderness about Bacio, the front-running winner of the Nunthorpe Stakes here on Friday. He was headstrong and belligerent on the way to post and simply brutal once the race was under way, tearing down the five-furlong strip without seeing a rival on the way to a one-and-a-quarter length success.
Juan Hernandez, Bacio’s jockey, had a plane to catch later on Friday – he has booked rides in California on Saturday afternoon – and his mount did all he could to ensure that he got to Heathrow on time, producing a carbon copy of his win in a five-furlong handicap at Royal Ascot in June.
The going at Ascot was good-to-firm and much energy had been expended in the run-up to Friday’s race on speculation over Bacio’s ability to handle softer ground. As it turned out, it made no difference at all to Wesley Ward’s colt, and the American trainer finally has a Nunthorpe success to go with his 13 wins at Royal Ascot since 2009.
Ward was on the Knavesmire to watch his three previous Nunthorpe runners but followed Friday’s race from his barn at Keeneland in Kentucky, the venue for this year’s Breeders’ Cup meeting in late October.
“I know a lot of people were worried about the ground for him, but he didn’t know that,” Hernandez said, before running to a waiting helicopter to connect with the 6.15pm flight from Heathrow to Los Angeles.
“He ran great, he broke out of the gate really well, really sharp and he was ready to go. When the gate opened, he was all fire. He was trying to go too early, but I was able to take him back a little bit and save him for the last part.
“Everyone here has done such a great job with the horse. I’m really happy, this race is for America and all my family. Thank you, guys.”
Bacio showed no sign of his recent exertions in the winner’s enclosure and was still bucking and snorting as he was led out. If he is in similar form ahead of the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint on 31 October, he will be one of the shortest-priced favourites of the two-day meeting.
“He’s just so fast that it doesn’t matter what he runs on,” Caitlin Ward, the trainer’s daughter-in-law, said afterwards. “He just skips over the surface [and] he’s a classic turf sprinter.”
