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Jabalaly
Jabalaly broke his maiden tag at the seventh attempt yesterday evening, when decisively taking the seven-furlong 0-80 handicap at Kempton. The victory was an important one, as it removed us from the cold list and confirmed that the string are trending in the right direction after a lean spell.
If you had told us it would take so long for this horse to get off the mark following his excellent racecourse debut as a two-year-old – when he chased home the subsequent Jersey and Boomerang Stakes hero Space Traveller who is now rated 113 – we would have been extremely disappointed. However, a mixture of injury, misfortune and circumstance has prevented the three-year-old son of Moohaajim from getting his head in front until this point.
From the widest draw of all jockey Jim Crowley was forced to drop in and ride for a little luck, but it didn’t take long before he had Jabalaly fairly nicely settled towards the rear of the field, behind a fairly well contested lead. By the time they began to swing for home Jabalaly had a lovely position on the rail but there were still far more rivals in front of him than behind.
As the field reached the cutaway around a quarter of a mile out, Jabalaly could be seen travelling very strongly amongst rivals, but there was more than a fleeting moment when it appeared as though he might struggle for room. However, Jim angled for a gap just over a furlong out, and Jabalaly needed no second invitation. He burst through and took the lead with a pleasing turn of speed, before comfortably holding the late challenge of Highfaluting who challenged out wide.
It was due reward for a horse that had placed in three of his previous six starts, and it seems as though the application of blinkers has enabled him to find a new level. It was also probably significant that we dropped him back to seven-furlongs yesterday, as he had run a similar race over a mile at Kempton the time before, but appeared to be just worried out of it when stamina was at a premium late on. As a half-brother to the five-time Listed winning seven-furlong specialist Tabarrak, there seems no reason to deviate from this trip for the foreseeable future. Hopefully the handicapper will not be too unkind, as Jabalaly is certainly capable of winning again from a similar mark.
We send our warmest congratulations to Jabalaly’s loyal owner Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, and thank all the staff in the yard for their continued hard work. Hopefully this win is a sign that our fortunes are going to improve and we won’t have to wait long for another visit to the winner’s enclosure.