Paddy Flood on Wayne Lordan's Guineas ride - 'If you watch the overhead shot of True Love, it was brilliant'

Following the spectacular performance of No Nay Never filly, True Love, to win Newmarket’s 1000 Guineas on Sunday, the first words from trainer Aidan O’Brien post-race were high praise for the man on board Wayne Lordan.

O’Brien said: ‘Wayne gave her a beautiful ride’ before stating she is likely to stay at a mile for the remainder of the season: “I’d imagine she’d stay at a mile now, she’d have the Irish Guineas and the Coronation - all those big fillies’ races.”

The Irish Angle team of Paddy Flood, Johnny Ward and Emma Nagle were equally impressed by Wayne Lordon’s skills in the saddle given the nature of Newmarket’s Rowley Mile - an unforgiving track, with no hiding places due to the relentless, end-to-end gallop in races.

Impressive race riding

Paddy Flood said: “I’ll give Precise another little mention. I thought she ran a great race for the race she was in.

“I felt like they were in two different races. If you watch the overhead shot of True Love, it was brilliant.

“You can actually see Wayne deciding a furlong and a half out not to get there, and that’s very rare. Sometimes you find yourself doing that in maidens, but not in Classics. That just shows the calibre of that filly.

“The sixth furlong was very, very fast, and then their last furlong was very strong.

“It’s brilliant for Wayne. He’s always been a great jockey. He was with David Wachman to start with, and it was easy for him to move over to Aidan, considering he’d already been riding for the Magniers anyway.

“He probably took over Seamus Heffernan’s role. We all love Seamie, and we still love seeing him riding winners now and again, but Wayne probably just came in with fresher legs.

“It must be great for Aidan to have such a solid rider you can count on, not necessarily on a second string, but on a filly with another chance in the race.”

'Exceptionally good’

Johnny Ward continued: “I can’t remember Wayne Lordan ever giving a horse a ride where you felt he should have won and didn’t.

“He was probably slightly pigeonholed as a lightweight jockey earlier in his career, and he rode for some really shrewd operators in Fozzy Stack, Tommy Stack, and David Wachman.

“He’s one of those really, really good riders. Not flashy, just exceptionally good at being in the right place on a horse, getting them to settle.”

A fine second-string job

Emma Nagle added: “It’s probably the best second-string job in the world when you can slot in for all these Classic winners.

“He got the Derby last year on Lambourn. I’d say it probably wasn’t the easiest decision for Ryan Moore either. Maybe he had to ride Precise given her two-year-old form.

“Precise did miss a few weeks earlier in the season with a temperature, which Aidan said at the time, so she was still maybe the obvious one coming into it.

“But True Love, I can’t really imagine her stepping up in trip, to be honest. A mile might be ideal for her, but she looks like a seriously classy filly wherever she goes next.”

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