Oasis Fantasy
Oasis Fantasy finally got his head in front after nearly two years of frustration when winning the opening handicap on the 1,000 Guineas day card at the Rowley Mile. Silvestre De Sousa soon had the son of Oasis Dream tucked in at the rear of the field but when the gallop slowed he was soon fighting the Champion jockey for his head with the first time blinkers making him more alert. As the pace quickened into the last half mile Oasis Fantasy gradually made ground before finding a gap and powering through it just over a furlong out, he then galloped resolutely to the line down the middle of the track to defeat Paddys Motorbike by one and a half lengths.
Our gelding has always had a lot of potential and has some smart placed form in some competitive handicap company and it is fantastic to see him finally harness it at a big meeting. His dam Cara Fantasy has bred Elusive Pimpernel, Palavicini and Prince Gagarin and Oasis Fantasy is yet another smart horse that she has produced. Going forward a fastly run one a quarter mile handicap may suit him although the way he settled the race and put in a fast sectional between the second and last furlong marker suggests he saw out the one mile and a half trip very well despite being keen early. We look forward to running him in another big handicap in the near future.
Global Applause was our second runner on the card and we were quietly confident he would run well on his career debut. The son of Mayson has always been very professional at home and we hoped he could translate it onto the track. Ryan Moore soon had him racing handily in behind the leader and when he asked him to quicken he went clear and put the race to bed between the two and one furlong poles. He edged over to the near side rail and ran on well to win very comfortably by three and three quarters lengths from the Richard Hannon trained Hakeem.
He may now head to the National Stakes on May 26th at Sandown which is a Listed contest run over five furlongs before heading on to Royal Ascot. It was a very exciting performance and there were some well touted individuals behind him that looked promising in their own right. It will be interesting to see how they perform when they are next seen but our colt was very professional and we hope he can prove to be top class in time.
Congratulations to Mrs Patino and Mr Dunlop who own Oasis Fantasy and to Dr Hon who owns Global Applause. We hope Oasis Fantasy can win another big handicap in 2016 and that Global Applause can progress to the top level during this campaign. A huge well done also to everyone at La Grange, the hard work has continued and May has started how April has finished. It would be a fantastic achievement to hit double figures for the month once more and we could not have got off to a better start.