William Hill Oaks Trial Fillies' Stakes Stats Guide

By Paul Jones

Only nine entries were received earlier this week, four of which are trained by Aidan O’Brien, so we are set for a smaller field than usual.

Since 1992, four fillies have completed the Lingfield Trial-Oaks double; User Friendly, Lady Carla and Ramruma before a wait of 20 years until Anapurna won both races in 2019. In between, the Ralph Beckett-trained Look Here improved on her second-place finish in this trial to cause a 33/1 upset at Epsom in 2008.

Beckett also took this prize with 2024 Irish Oaks winner You Got To Me, so it has worked as an ideal stepping stone for his Classic fillies, and that was his fourth success in this trial to join John Gosden as the joint-leading trainer, one ahead of O’Brien who took the spoils last season with the heavy-odds-on Giselle.

Beckett has entered Golden Orbit - by Sea The Stars out of a Dubawi mare - this season in the colours of the HM The King and HM The Queen, with the filly having won her only start as a two-year-old at Newmarket in September.

John and Thady Gosden have no entries this time around, but O’Brien has four to choose from in Bloom, Cameo, Ice Dancer and River Ara, all of which have had one start this season. Seasonal debutantes have a better record here than the Derby Trial on the same card, with half of the last 22 winners having their first run of the season. In fact, it's a case of the fewer runs the better, with 19 of those winners having run no more than three times before scoring here. The 2022 winner Rogue Millennium only made a winning debut two weeks earlier.

William Haggas has twice saddled the winner and looks set to run Sea The Storm, who made a winning seasonal return at Wetherby after switching stables from David Menuisier.

The ante-post favourite is the unbeaten-in-two Romantic Symphony for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin, who combined to win in 2023 with Eternal Hope. Of the last 22 winners, half returned no bigger than 5/2, while the same applies to last-time-out winners (six of which had won over 1m2f), so those stats rather go hand in hand.

Also, unlike the colts’ equivalent race, higher-drawn numbers have fared best, with 12 of the last 22 winners drawn in stall 5 or higher, though bigger field sizes for this trial have clearly been a factor.