The fillies enjoying the sunshine
Another beautiful sunny day here in Newmarket and the horses are all enjoying the sunshine as much as we are. Unfortunately it does mean that all of the courses are getting very fast ground and a lot of irrigation is necessary to maintain safe fast ground.
It was fantastic to get a double at Lingfield on Saturday and pick up some Black Type at Nottingham in the fillies’ Listed race. Dutch Uncle was given a fantastic front running ride by Silvestre in the ten furlong handicap and I was very encouraged by how professional Tibr was in the concluding five furlong Novice Stakes. Capricious Cantor finished fourth in the Oaks Trial and was slightly disappointing but the track did not suit her and more importantly the race turned into a sprint down the home straight and that is exactly what she did not want. She is still learning and I still believe we will see better from her in time. Alqubbah ran a fine race in third in the Kilvington Stakes and she showed a good attitude at the business end of the race. I think we will see even better from her on slightly slower ground.
We have five runners today starting with Inniscastle Lad in the ten furlong handicap at Brighton. He showed us more last time when winning and he contests another small field handicap with the blinkers remaining on. Van Huysen looks the main danger but he needs to convert his recent good form to the turf, our horse has two year old form on good to firm ground so we hope he can handle it. Charioteer contests the Median Auction Maiden in the 5:50 at Windsor, like most of my debutants he will come on a lot for the experience. We then have Justice First in the 6:50 and we are experimenting by dropping him in trip to 6f here, he showed plenty of speed when winning over seven furlongs last time so we hope he can prove effective over 6f later this evening. Blushes steps up in trip to 8f in the 7:50 as we felt she lacked the speed for seven furlongs last time. Silvestre De Sousa takes the ride and she has a small each way chance. Michael’s Mount looks to have the best chance in the last at 8:20, he won in workmanlike fashion here two weeks ago and we hope he is a progressive type that defy a four pound rise for that win.
There were no standout performances in the Derby Trials at the weekend that made everyone think they may have seen the Derby winner but there were plenty of decent horses on show. It was good to see my brother’s horse Robin of Navan run well when second in the Group 2 Prix Greffulhe and he looked as though he will improve for that run which is very encouraging. Nyquist looks like he could be another Superstar in the making after his impressive Kentucky Derby win, they went hard from the front as ever and he was able to see the gallop out to the line to comfortably fend off the fast finishing Exaggerator. It is a good training performance by Doug O’Neill to win a Breeders Cup Juvenile and then win a Kentucky Derby with him and he is the first horse since 2008 to come out of the Kentucky Derby with an unbeaten record intact. Another truly remarkable equine feat was the Badminton win of Michael Jung in a record low score. He now holds the four star event titles at Badminton, Burghley and Kentucky and won the $350,000 bonus for winning the Grand Slam, this hadn’t been done since 2002.