TOP 5 - ENGLISH OAKS WINNERS SINCE THE YEAR 2000

We rank out Top 5 Oaks winners since the turn of the millennium. 5th - LOVE In 2020; a year disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, there was still signs of good things on the racetrack as Aidan O’Brien’s star filly backed up her 1000 Guineas win, to claim a fabulous victory at Epsom in the Oaks. With Love sent off the 11/10 favourite, she settled towards the rear of the field as two pacemakers build up a huge advantage and made into a stamina-sapping race. She began to make her move around the descent of Tattenham Corner and took the lead impressively to win by a massive nine lengths, and set a new record winning time for the Oaks.

LOVE

4th - TAGHROODA With a stunning pedigree being by Sea The Stars and out of a very good stayer in Ezima, Taghrooda went into the 2014 Oaks against sixteen other fillies as the 5/1 third favourite following on from her seasonal reappearance win at Newmarket in the Pretty Polly Stakes. She and jockey Paul Hanagan calculated the right time to pounce with two furlongs out in the straight and won easily, whilst in the process allowing commentator Richard Hoiles to famously say; (as she ran to the winning post) “It's a one filly race... and that one filly is Taghrooda”.

TAGHROODA

3rd - OUIJA BOARD A brilliant racehorse who amassed over £3million in prize money, Ouija Board won the 2004 Oaks by seven lengths which became the first of her seven group 1 victories in her career. From announcing herself on the big stage at Epsom, to travelling across the globe to America and Hong Kong, she was a real superstar spanning through four seasons and winning at the very highest level. Notable wins at the Breeders’ Cup, in the Hong Kong Vase, Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood followed before retirement in 2006. Ouija Board died in November 2022 at the age of 21, but without question leaves a lasting legacy.

OUIJA BOARD

2nd - SNOWFALL Snowfall was a Japanese-bred thoroughbred racehorse trained by Aidan O’Brien, and famously won the 2021 Epsom Oaks by a record margin of sixteen lengths. On a rainy day at Epsom and on good-to-soft ground she started the 11/2 third favourite, with Frankie Dettori onboard. Travelling the race near the back of the pack throughout, she made rapid progress in the straight and took off without ever looking back! Dettori won his 21st classic that day, but the impressiveness and the manner of the win was so spectacular. Snowfall would also go on to win the Irish Oaks and Yorkshire Oaks the same year.

SNOWFALL

1st - ENABLE Widely known as the “Queen of the turf”, Enable won the Oaks in 2017 in heavy rain at odds of 6/1 beating hot-favourite Rhododendron by five lengths. She goes down as one of the very best middle-distance horses in recent years, with victories in the Irish Oaks in 2017, a two-time Yorkshire Oaks winner (2017 & 2019), Breeders’ Cup Turf (2018), Eclipse Stakes (2019), three-time King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner and also in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe twice.

ENABLE

written by Dafydd Lloyd