Our Ben Linfoot has a couple of horses to follow after Saturday's Classic trials at Newbury as a Cheveley Park-owned filly made a nice start to her three-year-old campaign.
All eyes on Troy to spark Flat into life
The Flat season very rarely starts with a bang these days but the beginning of the 2024 campaign has been particularly subdued for a variety of reasons.
Wet weather has certainly played a part, the dampest of winters followed by a soggy spring, and that has seen testing conditions prevail for the early turf meetings while behind the scenes trainers have struggled to get their horses out on the grass gallops.
Then we’ve had unusual interest in the UK jumps trainers’ championship thanks to a certain W P Mullins and his Closutton battalion, a feat basically signed and sealed after Macdermott’s Scottish National win, while this week’s Classic trials have not amounted to much at all.
In the Craven Stakes you would think a dominant winner would cause waves in the 2000 Guineas antepost market, but revised 25/1 odds about Haatem barely caused a ripple, understandable when you consider the disappointing performances of the better-fancied horses in the trial, combined with the fact he couldn’t get near City Of Troy at two.
The looming presence of City Of Troy over the antepost markets has had a knock-on effect on the meaningfulness of the trials, his juvenile form being franked by the likes of Haatem only strengthening his grip on the 2000 Guineas.
Indeed, it feels like the Flat season won’t really catch fire until we see the son of Justify on the Rowley Mile in two weeks’ time, the most interesting angle from this week’s trials being the confidence in Richard Hannon’s Rosallion on the back of some good performances from his apparently inferior stablemates.
He was further backed into 4/1 for the Guineas on Saturday, the son of Blue Point seemingly working the house down at Marlborough, stablemate Son’s good fourth in the Greenham adding an extra layer of confidence on the back of wins for Hannon's fellow three-year-olds Haatem, Voyage and Star Style this week.
There must be plenty of confidence in him getting the mile, too, given he’s as big as 16/1 in the betting for the Commonwealth Cup, the most obvious race for him at Royal Ascot if he ends up running like a non-stayer at Newmarket the first weekend in May.
Two for the tracker
While City Of Troy v Rosallion is the first big thing to look forward to this Flat season, I watched Saturday’s Newbury trials with interest and felt there were a couple of points of note.
Firstly, I felt Regal Jubilee ran a cracker in the Fred Darling, John & Thady Gosden’s daughter of Frankel laying a perfectly sound platform for the campaign ahead with a very good second at Newbury.
A touch fresh and keen as she raced with slight leader Star Music in the early stages, the Cheveley Park-owned filly maintained her effort as Richard Hughes’ filly fell away, doing much the best of the prominent pair as she only lost out on victory by a neck as Folgaria edged in front in the final furlong.
Regal Jubilee rallied well to make it interesting and with several stamina clues in her pedigree she looks more like an Oaks filly than a Guineas one at this stage. A half-sister to 10-furlong winner Regal Reality, she could get further than that thanks to the Frankel influence, while another half-brother, Eagle's Realm, is a winning hurdler who has won over two miles on the Flat.
The Gosden horses have come out this spring like they are in need of a run and this filly looked no different, so 20/1 odds about her for Epsom are worth considering, their winner of the same Classic last year, Soul Sister, having also taken in the Fred Darling, even if she did finish stone last.
It was a good day for Cheveley Park who own the Greenham winner, Esquire, as well, the son of Harry Angel keeping on well to run out a decisive winner, although he won’t have any Classic aspirations being a gelding.
Finding positives for the future in the Greenham isn’t as easy, but Mister Sketch shaped well enough for Eve Johnson Houghton and looks one to follow under different circumstances.
He too raced with the choke out a little and was short of room on a couple of occasions, William Buick not knocking him about as he came home a three-length sixth.
The Wathnan Racing-owned horse caught the eye a couple of times as a juvenile, most notably when second in a heavy ground Mill Reef, and it could be the son of Territories will come into his own when he races on testing ground.
Either way, he looks to have trained on, and he’s worth noting for next time out when the Flat season should really have cranked up a few gears, all being well.
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