A homebred for legendary breeder and trainer Jim Bolger, Dawn Approach colt Poetic Flare won the Group I St James’s Place Stakes (1m) at Royal Ascot overnight defeating the gallant Yulong owned Lucky Vega, who will stand at their Victorian farm this spring .
Ridden by Jim Bolger’s son-in-law Kevin Manning, Poetic Flare was lining up for his fifth start this year and showed his class with a commanding four and a quarter length win.
Poetic Flare ran in all three Guineas races winning the Newmarket 2000 Guineas, finishing sixth in France and then second in Ireland, but appears to be thriving on the tough schedule of travel and racing.
“Poetic Flare is the best horse I've bred. He's the first one to take it like that, Teofilo might just have done it but he didn't get the chance to prove it as a three-year-old,” said James Bolger.
“He's exceptional. I haven't had one that can take everything he's taken. I felt he was improving and I have to admit, genuinely, I was expecting a performance like that. I would have taken any win, but that's what I expected. He's improved so much and he was so well. He's entered in the Sussex, that's a real possibility.”
The Sussex Stakes would see a match up with Palace Pier providing a race that may well decide the best European miler of the year.
Both his sire Dawn Approach and grand-sire New Approach were trained by Bolger, who has also enjoyed success with Poetic Flare’s three-quarter sister Glamorous Approach, a Group placed multiple stakes-winner by New Approach.
Poetic Flare has the overall record of five wins and a second from eight starts and is the best of four winners from Rock of Gibraltar mare Maria Lee, who comes from the family of another Bolger bred and trained champion Teofilo.
Poetic Flare is the first Group I winner for Dawn Approach who has sired 15 stakes-winners in total, six of them bred here in the Southern Hemisphere.
Dawn Approach shuttled to Darley Australia for the last time in 2018 and his last crop of 23 Australian foals are yearlings.
