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Albigna was a top two-year-old who shaped like a Classic filly

Let's talk about: Our writers nominate the horses they think could end up taking star billing this Flat season

By Sporting Life

Horse Racing

Sun April 05, 2020 · 5y ago

Our new series continues with Matt Brocklebank and Richard Mann looking ahead to who they think could take the spotlight at the end-of-year awards ceremonies.

We want your feedback - who do you think will really light up the Flat season when it finally gets back rolling? Check out details of how to contact us towards the foot of the article - and the views from our readers.

Matt Brocklebank - Positive

Without wanting to sound glib, we may need to be on the lookout for a back-end type when it comes to this particular nomination, although the horse I have in mind would love a genuine summer campaign so we can only live in hope.

However the rest of the year unfolds, with some handlers already deciding to take their horses out of training and generally putting life on hold for the foreseeable future, this is not going to be a Flat season as we know it.

The longer the freeze goes on the international racing pattern will effectively have to be ripped up and, for Britain at least, it could be that we end up with a Classic programme far removed from what we're currently used to.

This is not the platform to suggest just how the fixture list might come to look by July and August but something more akin to the North American Triple Crown series - the three races often being done and dusted in a little over two months - might add an interesting dimension if it can somehow be manufactured and agreed upon.

Regardless of that, with 2000 Guineas trials and the first Classic itself already looking in distinct danger of being postponed at best, it may be late summer at the earliest by the time we see anything like a top-class three-year-old in action, by which point the really flashy two-year-olds from 2019 may have missed their best opportunity to carry on shining as others begin to catch up.

And that has to include Pinatubo.

He was pretty sensational last year and, along with stellar older horse Enable, would be your typical starting point when it comes to predicting who might mop up at the Cartiers come mid-November.

But Charlie Appleby's Shamardal colt started out on May 10 2019 and is no guarantee to train on given such precocity aligned with his relatively diminutive figure.

Of all the horses who finished behind Pinatubo at two, including the likes of Ballydoyle trio Arizona, Wichita and Armory, it was the Clive Cox-trained Positive who shaped like he really had the potential to bridge the gap.

The tall son of Dutch Art was second to Pinatubo in the Vintage Stakes at Glorious Goodwood on the second start of his life, while we can safely put a line through his Dewhurst effort when he hated the soft ground.

Between those efforts he raised his game to beat Kameko - winner of the Vertem Futurity subsequently - in the Solario at Sandown and he's from a family Cox knows really well so I'd expect significant improvement this year, especially when stepped up in trip.

At times like these, a little Positive thinking can go a long way.

Positive (right) holds on from Kameko in a tight call for the Solario

Richard Mann - Albigna

Albigna was one of the stars of last season, certainly in the juvenile division, and she can take top billing in Ireland and Britain when the 2020 season eventually gets rolling.

The most exciting thing about Albigna is that everything she has done so far - including earning an official rating of 114 – should be a bonus.

Albigna has always appealed as a long-term project, both physically and mentally, and it is to her credit that she was able to win at Group Two and Group One level last term, with her victories coming on a variety surfaces from good to firm to very soft, and over distances ranging from six furlongs to a mile.

She looks to be the complete package. By the end of June last year she was unbeaten in two starts over six furlongs, despite promising to be even more effective over further, and though she met defeat twice in three subsequent starts, her victory in the Qatar Prix Marcel Boussac at Longchamp in October was a brilliant display that marked her down as a top-notch filly.

A trip to America for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf a month later might have been a plan engineered more by the Niarchos Family than trainer Jessie Harrington herself, but their filly left Santa Anita with her reputation arguably enhanced, a fast-finishing fourth having been held up round the tight turns of the famous California track suggesting she was both unlucky and the one to take from the race.

The return to Europe is sure to suit her better with ground conditions unlikely to be quite as firm as in the US, while Harrington will be able to point her towards more galloping tracks should she wish.

That brings the Guineas at Newmarket and the Curragh into the mix, should the global pandemic not decimate the racing calendar to such a point we lose this year’s Classics altogether, while the experience gained around Santa Anita should stand Albigna in good stead if Epsom is considered.

From a mile to 12 furlongs, Albigna’s options would appear endless and given there is every reason to expect considerable physical improvement from this big stamp of a filly following another winter on her back, the best might still be to come.

She's clearly in good hands, too, and I’ll be disappointed if Albigna doesn’t end the year as one of the superstars of 2020.

Send us your views

Send your comments and contributions to racingfeedback@sportinglife.com and if you’ve any ideas for more topics you want covering over the coming days and weeks please let us know.

Feedback from readers

Dave Parker: I do not follow the flat with the gusto of the jump season. But I do follow the flat enough to have a bet each week and thinking back to last year I remember the race between Positive and Kameko which was a good race to watch. All depending on how they both have trained on I would pick Kameko to have improved better. But with the times we live in at the moment all trainers are going to find it tough until sanctions are lifted good luck to them all. We never know really what is going to come out of Ireland but they have the same problems. Will be a interesting season hopefully it gets going soon.

Jen from BSE: I think we have to assume that the Guineas weekend will be scrapped. It then calls into question the rest of the calendar. Any substitute race would be just that. Unless the Guineas is run in late April/early May it will not be the Guineas, the race has been run at that time in the season for over 200 years with very few exceptions on the Rowley Mile. It defines a horse that comes to hand early in their classic year, performs well over a mile and whether the top juveniles have trained on. Pinatubo was so far ahead of his contemporaries that you would have expected him to win by performing at the level he attained last year. As the season progressed it would be interesting to see whether he improved. Both his sire and Dam had finished their racing careers by mid June of their classic season so he is by no means guaranteed to progress. If they tried to stretch his stamina to the Derby trip I feel they would have over-played their hand.

The Derby, as Federico Tesio argued, is a great race because of its enduring point in the Calendar. If you hold it later or at a different track, it must be regarded as a substitute. To win the Derby asks every question of a three year old. Epsom is a unique test and a thoroughbred must have all the attributes to succeed. Derby horses start working in February, so they have to come to hand early but they also have to have the maturity to stay a mile and a half, go uphill, come down a steep hill, negotiate a very tight turn and then cope with a camber and rising ground just as their reserves of stamina are giving out.

Run it at a different time of year and the result will be a false one.

Martyn Weston: The term superstar might be a bit premature for this filly, but she is a once ran novice stakes winner who could be anything, but certainly looks a group horse in the making.

The Roger Varian trainer Fooraat is impeccably bred by Dubawi and out of high class Nahrain.

She was given a great educational ride on debut by James Sullivan. The distance win was only a neck, but she was comfortably on top in the final strides and hit the line hard, beating a smart Gosden filly into 2nd with a decent Johnston filly back in 3rd, who also looks an improver off a mark of 80.

This one performance already suggest Fooraat is a 90+ horse who will want further than the 7F event it won at Newcastle. She is a full sister to Benbatl and looks sure to improve into a really smart 3yo and keep progressing throughout her 4yo campaign.

Probably not a horse who you will get a great price on, but she looked primed to develop into a high class filly.