Royal Ascot-bound Babouche surges back in the Lacken Stakes

Confirming that she has lost none of her juvenile power, Babouche, who was second-favourite behind old rival Whistlejacket for Sunday's Gr.3 Lacken Stakes, duly did what she had done to him in last year's Gr.1 Phoenix Stakes.

Taken from the Thoroughbred Daily News, 19th May 2025, by Tom Frary:

Keen early for Colin Keane and denied cover in the Naas feature, the 2-1 second favourite was delivered to swamp Ballydoyle's 4-5 market-leader two out en route to a two and three-quarter-length success.

"That's the first time I've seen that this year from her," trainer Ger Lyons said of the daughter of Kodiac, who had lost some lustre in September when fourth in the Gr.1 Juddmonte Cheveley Park Stakes but was at her best to bring up a treble for Lyons and Keane on the card with the duo having already won the two-year-old Group 3 with Lady Iman.

"Now she's back and we can go to the Commonwealth [Cup] and if we get beat we get beat, but at least we know we are locked and loaded."

Prepped for this when fourth under a penalty in the fivefurlong Listed Polonia Stakes 12 days earlier, Babouche was executing a well-laid plan according to Lyons: "We sucked it up and we went to Cork. It wasn't the obvious right thing to do but it was the right thing to do for what I was seeing at home," he explained. "We parked the reputation and the ego thinking she was going to get beaten because it was a furlong too short, but we'd spent the whole spring trying to settle her down and getting her to do it right."

Babouche's dam Pavlosk by Arch, who was successful in the Listed Michael Seely Memorial Stakes over a mile, is also responsible for Dansili's Stakes-placed Derevo and this stable's Zarinsk, also by Kodiac, whose four blacktype wins included the Gr.2 Minstrel Stakes, Gr.3 Brownstown Stakes and Gr.3 Cornelscourt Stakes. Pavlosk, whose two-year-old filly Hinder is by Expert Eye and who also has a yearling filly by Bated Breath, is a full-sister to the fellow Listed winner Rostova and a half to the dual Group 3 scorer and Gr.1 Gran Premio di Milano-placed Stakes producer Exhibit One. This is the family of Zafonic and Zamindar which includes the Gr.1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches runner-up Irish Rookie.