Asfoora returns to Newmarket for Palace House Stakes comeback

Asfoora will return to Newmarket on Saturday in a Palace House Stakes comeback that doubles as a test of whether one of Australia’s top sprinters can still travel the world and hit the same fierce top gear.

The eight-year-old mare, rated 114 on the latest racecard, is entered for the Group 3 HKJC World Pool Palace House Stakes at Newmarket Racecourse on May 2. She will do so from the yard of Lemos de Souza, who has been overseeing the early part of her 2026 preparation at Newmarket before Henry Dwyer is expected to resume handling her later in the season.

That arrangement gives Asfoora’s spring campaign an unusual shape. Rather than settle into one stable for the year, she is moving through a temporary handover in Britain before another switch back to Dwyer, a trans-hemisphere setup that has already carried her to some of the biggest sprint prizes in the sport. It is also a reminder of how central Newmarket has become to her European raids, with the mare previously based there during UK campaigns.

The race matters because Asfoora is not simply returning to run; she is returning to answer a question. Can she recapture the level that made her one of the most formidable Australian-trained sprinters in the world? She won the Group 1 King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2024, becoming the sixth Australian-trained horse to land the race, then added the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes at York in August 2025 before completing a rare international hat-trick in the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye at ParisLongchamp in October 2025.

Her 2025 Nunthorpe win also secured an automatic Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint berth, underlining how far her form has carried beyond Australia. It also underlines the stakes around this first run of the new campaign. If she is sharp enough to dominate at Newmarket, it strengthens the case for another Royal Ascot bid and a summer aimed once again at the sport’s fastest international sprints.

Dwyer has already said he feels Asfoora will be “incredibly hard to beat”, and there is logic to that confidence. The mare has handled long-haul travel before, including a roughly 40-hour return journey via Hong Kong, Doha and Stansted on a previous UK trip. That kind of durability is rare enough; doing it while still winning at the highest level is what has made Asfoora stand out.