Porta Fortuna powers to emphatic Falmouth victory

Donnacha O’Brien’s filly secures third Group One success in style at Newmarket.

Porta Fortuna supplemented her determined victory at Royal Ascot with a dominant display in the Tattersalls Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket.

A Group One winner at two in the Cheveley Park Stakes, Donnacha O’Brien’s filly kicked off her Classic campaign by finishing second to Elmalka in the 1000 Guineas on the Rowley Mile before comprehensively reversing that form to land the Coronation Stakes at the royal meeting last month.

Having now fully proven her once questioned stamina over the mile, Porta Fortuna was the 10-11 favourite to claim a third top-level win on the July Course and stamped her authority against her elders in no uncertain terms under Ryan Moore.

Running Lion, winner of the Duke of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot, set out to make all the running in the hands of Oisin Murphy, while Porta Fortuna initially sat perfectly positioned in her slipstream.

However, Running Lion weakened quickly with more than two furlongs still to race, which perhaps left Porta Fortuna in front sooner than Moore, deputising for Tom Marquand who was required to ride at York, would have liked.

But it made little difference to the result, as the further O’Brien’s filly went, the better she looked and she passed the post with three and three-quarter lengths in hand over the improving Jabaara, with Rogue Millennium and Irish 1,000 Guineas runner-up A Lilac Rolla dead-heating for third.

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