At the end of the 2020 Flat season, Magical was the joint-seventh highest rated older horse in training in Europe, according to Timeform. The fact that she was ‘in training’, at all, in 2020 came as a slight surprise, granted that she was originally retired in November, 2019, having been ruled out of the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita Park, California with an elevated temperature.
However, owners John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith had a change of heart and, in the spring of 2020, the Galileo mare – already the winner of nine of her 21 races, including four at Group One level – returned to training with Aidan O’Brien. Magical did not make her five-year-old debut until late June, but made an immediate impact, with comfortable wins in the Pretty Polly Stakes and the Tattersalls Gold Cup, both Group One contests, at the Curragh. In August, she proved no match for Ghaiyyath in the Juddmonte International Stakes at York, but reversed that form in the Irish Champion Stakes at the Curragh the following month to record her third Group One win of the season and her seventh in all.
Magical subsequently failed, albeit not by far, to win the Champion Stakes at Ascot for the second year running and, despite starting favourite, could finish only second in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland, Kentucky. Nevertheless, at the time of writing, she still has one last chance to end her career on a high note, in the Group One Hong Kong Cup at Sha Tin in December, 2020, for which she is currently top-priced 11/4 favourite ante post.