Good afternoon from Newmarket, July week is upon us! This is of course an extremely busy week for us Newmarket trainers on and off the track, with social engagements, sales work – and a bit of racing too! We have started the week very quietly, with no runners since Saturday evening, but we are back at full tilt today as we send a pair of runners to Yarmouth this afternoon and another to Kempton this evening.
Let us discuss Yarmouth first, where I run two horses that have a fair bit to prove. In the mile and six-furlong 0-75 at 3.20, Perique has his second start in handicap company. This son of Cacique proved wayward and green on his first three starts, earning a rating of 60 in the process, and then finished virtually tailed off on handicap bow at Chepstow just 8 days ago.
Clearly we need to see a major step up from that performance, although there may have been a mitigating circumstance. Perique likes to play with his tongue a lot, and it may well have been that this playfulness resulted in his tongue getting in the way and impairing his breathing. To that end, we will run him in a tongue-strap this afternoon, and we also go up by two-furlongs in trip. He is bred to be much better than a mark of 60, we feel that there is a little more in the engine than he has shown so far, but it is now time that we see some racecourse encouragement. It is impossible to have particularly high expectations, but I am hoping to see a little bit of encouragement. Rab Havlin takes the mount.
In the mile maiden at 4.50, Global Rock has his third outing on a racecourse. A well-bred and handsome son of Siyouni, we thought at one stage that he might make a racehorse, but in two outings so far he has been bitterly disappointing.
On his Newbury debut in May he got very tired on good to soft ground having shown up prominently early, and then he showed virtually nothing second time out at Carlisle, again on an easy surface. We are onto significantly quicker ground today, so it will be interesting to see how he handles it, and with only four rivals still engaged we need to see a bit more to suggest we have something to work with going forward. He remains a horse we have not given up on, but this will be a big test for him. Cieren Fallon takes off a valuable five pounds.
Our third runner is probably our best chance of a winner, though Global Warning finds himself in a competitive-looking heat at 8.45 at Kempton. A very well-bred individual, he built on maiden promise when winning a seven-furlong Newcastle handicap in April, before disappointing badly at Newmarket back on turf. A subsequent return to the AW over today’s C&D saw him run a respectable fourth last month, and he has been given a little bit of time since in order to freshen him up. It is difficult to weigh up whether or not he remains well-handicapped, and we are still working out his best trip. However, he is more than talented enough to be competitive in this grade and hopefully he won’t be disgraced and has a small each way chance. Gerald Mosse will be riding.
All the best,
Ed.