Joliestar eyes July Cup after brave Royal Ascot third
Joliestar’s third at Royal Ascot left her a short head from Group 1 glory and pointed her straight at Newmarket, with a July Cup run now the most logical next step.
Joliestar did not win the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot, but the Australian mare left the meeting with her reputation enhanced and her next target already taking shape. Beaten only a short head for third on June 20 behind Almeraq and Satono Reve, she came out of a chaotic three-way finish in the £1 million sprint with her overseas credentials intact and her campaign widened rather than narrowed.
That is why the July Cup at Newmarket on July 11 looks like more than a simple follow-up. The straight six-furlong test at Newmarket offers the same kind of high-speed, no-excuse examination that suits a mare with Joliestar’s record at the top level, and her Ascot run suggested she can transfer that form beyond Australia. She was the favourite in the Jubilee Stakes, kept her nerve in a race Ascot described as one in which Almeraq foiled overseas raiders, and still finished close enough to remain in the conversation for the sport’s best sprint prizes.
Chris Waller framed it in the simplest way possible: she “did us proud in her first overseas start.” For a mare already a five-time Group 1 winner in Australia, and fresh from taking the T J Smith Stakes at Randwick on April 4 when she beat Giga Kick, that is the sort of defeat that can strengthen rather than diminish a profile. Waller had taken her to Britain well before Ascot, based at Charlie Hills’ stables in Lambourn and sent to Newbury for a flat gallop, all part of giving her every chance to settle before the world championship meeting at Royal Ascot.
The July Cup decision now comes down to fit. If Joliestar has come through Ascot well, Newmarket’s setup gives her another straight-course Group 1 in which her speed and class can do the talking again. If she returns to Royal Ascot in 2027, as now planned, it will be because connections believe the mare’s arc still points upward. Sir Brendan Lindsay and Lady Jo Lindsay already know what elite sprinting looks like, and this sequence suggests they may have another international flag-bearer on their hands.
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