Read an extract from Timeform's Horses To Follow for the 2025 Flat season that focuses on handicapper Simon Baker's selection Trad Jazz.
HORSE TO FOLLOW: TRAD JAZZ
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Former champion trainer of Arabian horses James Owen featured as one of our ‘Rising Star’ trainers for the 2023/24 jumps season. At the time, Owen was first starting to catch the eye with a small number of jumpers, notably those owned by The Gredley Family. Owen went on to train 38 winners over jumps that season, a total he had already surpassed by Christmas in the current jumps season. If anything, though, the Newmarket trainer made an even bigger impact in 2024 with his Flat horses.
His very first winner on the Flat was Destinado at Wolverhampton at the beginning of January, with the same horse going on to win eight races and contributing to an end-of-year stable total on the level of 63 wins. Among those winners were Royal Lodge Stakes winner Wimbledon Hawkeye and Newmarket listed winner Burdett Road, two more members of the Gredley string, and the same owners have an exciting three-year-old filly to look forward to this season in Trad Jazz.
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Trad Jazz proved easy to back when making her sole two-year-old start in a fillies’ maiden at Kempton in August but belied that weakness in the betting with an impressive debut success under Hector Crouch. Racing in mid-division, she made headway under pressure over two out before storming clear in the final furlong to win by three and three quarter lengths from the 1/2 favourite Dancingintherain who had been third on her debut over course and distance and attempted to make all the running. The remainder finished at intervals in a race rather lacking in depth, though the fourth Loch Leven put up a fairly useful effort when winning a maiden back at Kempton in the autumn.
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Trad Jazz already looks well bought at 40,000 guineas as a yearling which is a fraction of the 420,000 guineas her year-younger half-sister by Night of Thunder cost at Tattersalls last October. The Gredleys have had success before with Trad Jazz’s sire Sea The Moon, albeit in a very different discipline as he’s the sire of their high-class front-running chaser Allmankind. Trad Jazz is the first foal out of the lightly-raced but useful Kirstenbosch whose main claim to fame was finishing second to none other than Enable in the September Stakes at Kempton. That track has been the scene of further success for the family as Kirstenbosch’s half-sister Cheetah won twice there, including a listed contest, before going on to win a Grade 3 in the States. Further back, it’s an Aga Khan family with plenty of stamina, that of 1988 Derby winner Kahyasi. James Owen
Simon Baker's view: "Trad Jazz created a tremendous impression at Kempton, on the clock as well as visually, and considering she's bred to make a much better three-year-old she looks a really bright prospect for the up-and-coming James Owen."
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