Weekend Results (9/3-9/6): Quality Road wins the Woodward

With approximately two months remaining until the 2010 Breeders' Cup at Churchill Downs it's getting down to crunch time for many horses and connections.  This weekend we've got a bunch of action in the juvenile divisions, a key prep for the Sprint, and two "Win and You're In" races for the Classic.  Here's a look at what took place this morning in England and Ireland:

• At Leopardstown, Cape Blanco (IRE) scored a gate-to-wire upset over Rip Van Winkle (IRE) and Twice Over (GB) in the Group 1 Irish Champions Stakes.  Cape Blanco won the Irish Derby earlier this year.  
  
  The Irish Champions Stakes is a "Win and You're In race for the Breeders' Cup Classic.  Should Aiden O'Brien choose to bring Cape Blanco to Churchill Downs in November he is guaranteed a spot in the Classic field.
• Lillie Langtry (IRE), an Aiden O'Brien trained filly that finished a disappointing 8th as the favorite in last fall's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, won the one mile Group 1 Matron Stakes at Leopardstown over Spacious (GB) and Music Show (IRE).  Lillie Langtry won the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Ascot in mid-June.
• At Haydock, Markab (GB) was the upset winner of the Group 1 Sprint Cup over Lady Of The Desert and Genki (IRE). Favorite Starspangledbanner (AUS) finished a well-beaten fifth.

All of this weekend's stakes results will be summarized in the chart below, along with a link to the result chart (when available).  The chart appears best on "wide" settings.

• I don't know if anybody else had the same opinion of the Woodward, but Quality Road noticeably shortened his stride inside the last furlong.  Yeah, he was going to win easy given the field running behind him, but more than ever I'm not sure he's going to want 10 furlongs in the Classic.  
• How good is Twirling Candy?  He completely bolts coming off the first turn into the backstretch in the Del Mar Derby, gets head strong on jockey Joel Rosario, calms back down and then proceeds to blow away the field with ease.  Whether or not he should have been taken down is irrelevant to me - to lose concentration like he did at the mid-way point and then still dominate the field is pretty impressive.  Now, he was clearly the best horse in the field going in so it's certainly debatable if he'd be able to recover from such a move in a race with a deeper field, but this colt is has some serious power at his disposal.  
  
  What are the odds Twirling Candy gets a set of blinkers for his next start?  Another question: will we see both Sidney's Candy and Twirling Candy in the Mile?