Trip To Paris
Trip To Paris has timed his return to La Grange very well indeed and has left one hotspot in Australia for another here in Newmarket. He came back to La Grange just before Midnight on Thursday and he looks in fantastic condition, he appears to be very happy to be back. We took it relatively easy with the older horses this morning and we did an easy piece of work with some of the babies on the Limekilns.
I was happy with both of our runners at Nottingham yesterday. Alfahad was very free in the early stages of the 1m2f maiden and he travelled well before fading slightly to finish sixth in what looked a decent maiden. Cliff Face showed a little more than last time and travelled much better through her race. She is still weak and I think we will see better from her once she strengthens up.
We have four runners today at Lingfield and Nottingham. Capricious Cantor runs in the Oaks Trial at Lingfield and the ground will be a big unknown for her as she has only run on the all-weather so far. The Beckett filly looks like she is the horse to beat after her impressive maiden win last time but she also has to prove she handles the ground and Seventh Heaven won at Dundalk last time on the all-weather, there are a lot of unknowns and we will know where we stand with our filly after today and make further plans for her from there. Dutch Uncle has a fitness edge over the favourite in the ten furlong handicap but Winter House was impressive on his sole start and he could be anything. Tibr runs in the five furlong Novice Stakes and he is a horse I like but I believe he will be better over six furlongs in time. Whether he will be able to beat a horse with an experience edge and a well bred horse of Godolphin’s today over five furlongs I don’t know but I hope he can show us the signs he has shown us at home on the racetrack.
Alqubbah ran very well on debut when running into a well handicapped horse at Doncaster and I hope she can run well despite the step up in class today. The ground is a slight unknown but the jockeys said it was nice ground yesterday and whilst it will dry out this morning, we have to take our chance.
The big race of today is the Kentucky Derby and it will take a huge performance by the winner to get everyone as excited as they were by American Pharoah last year. There is added spice this year with the UAE Derby winner and Japanese raider Lani making the journey over making him the second ever Japanese runner in the race. We recently purchased a horse by More Than Ready at the Breeze Up Sales so I will be interested to see how his son Tom’s Ready fares later on. The unbeaten Nyquist will start favourite for Doug O’Neill but not since 2008 has an unbeaten runner kept their winning record intact. It is always a great spectacle and I look forward to watching it later tonight.