2025 Juddmonte International Stakes News - Quotes From Connections
- Key quotes ahead of the 2025 Juddmonte International Stakes
- This Group One will be run at York on Wednesday 20th August
- Read quotes from Aidan O'Brien, Andrew Balding and Shogo Yasuda on our website
The opening day of the Ebor Festival is headlined by the Juddmonte International Stakes, a ten-furlong Group One that has been won by many of flat racing's greatest horses.
Here are the quotes from the connections of the horses who'll run in Wednesday's renewal of the Juddmonte International Stakes.
2025 Juddmonte International Stakes - Key Quotes
Aidan O'Brien (Delacroix)
He looks a good horse. We always thought he was. His two runs before the Derby this year, he looked a little bit different. He's a horse with a lot of speed and he came out of Sandown great.
What he did at Sandown was kind of impossible, but he did it. When you look at his fractions for the last two furlongs, it's very unusual for a horse over a mile-and-a-quarter to do those kind of fractions.
We always thought he was a middle distance horse, but he does quicken and that's what sets good horses apart. He has great physical strength. He's by Dubawi, so he's big, scopey and powerful, and he has a great mind as well.
John Gosden (Ombudsman)
The Eclipse was a muddling race and we didn’t want the prospect of a repeat, so Godolphin have kindly provided us with a nice horse (Birr Castle) to use as a pacemaker.
Shogo Yasuda (Danon Decile)
He has that left-handed success, his Group 1 wins have come going that way. So of course that made me think about the International Stakes as a possible target. But that is only one reason to select this race. There are not many good races for Danon Decile in Japan at this stage of the season.
When I spoke about him in January, I was talking about what was right for him mentally, not physically. He was still immature and I felt he needed more maturity before tackling a mile and a half again, so maybe at that point 2,000 metres was easier for him.
We entered him in Dubai and my first choice was the Dubai World Cup, but the owner requested that we run in the Dubai Sheema Classic. Of course he ran very well, winning that great race. Now we're coming back to 2,000 metres (a mile and a quarter) and I have real confidence he can deal with that pace because he has become more mentally mature.
Andrew Balding (See The Fire)
Things didn’t really work out for her at Goodwood. They had a lot of heavy rain in the couple of hours leading up to the race and something we know is that she’s better on a sound surface.
The flag start didn’t help either. She forfeited a few lengths at the start and you just can’t give away ground, particularly in those conditions, so it was far from ideal.
But she’s come out of it well. She did a piece of work on Wednesday that couldn’t have been better and we’re delighted with her going into it. She’s had the two runs at York and she’s absolutely bolted up in the Strensall last year and she annihilated them in the Middleton this year, so it’s certainly a track that plays to her strengths.
Nemone Routh, Aga Khan Racing Manager (Daryz)
Francis and Mickael feel he's really in top form. Obviously it’s a massive step forward for him. We’re asking a big question and it’s a really tough field.
However, we just feel the horse is in good form and this is his distance, while he’ll probably have his ground, so we’ll find out if he can perform at this level at this time in his career. It might come a bit early but we’ve decided to take our chance.
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