Playupskyblues also adds first handicap at Kempton
It was a tale of two short-heads for the team on Friday as Majestic Beauty very nearly added success in the Listed St Hugh’s Stakes to her blossoming CV.
Amo Racing’s filly had shown plenty of heart in fighting back to win at Musselburgh seven days prior to her Newbury assignment, and showed those same fighting qualities to seemingly seal her first pattern-level prize until she was blindsided late by the fast-finishing Miaharris. The unbeaten winner is clearly a very good horse, and hopefully the record books will eventually show it was two very good fillies finishing 1-2.
A rather more satisfying short-head separated the Middleham Park-owned Lexington Belle from an apparently improving rival in the Wolverhampton nursery barely an hour prior. It took a bit of time for us to get to know her in her first three starts, but she has thrived in nurseries and may well now take her chance in the valuable one at the York Ebor meeting this coming week. It would be a major step up off her new mark and with the penalty on top, but there’s nothing quite like a thriving filly!
It’s taken a little longer than expected for Playupskyblues to register his first handicap success, but that’s more through circumstances than anything else and now he looks ready to make up for a little lost time. The Kempton race he won this week was a typically competitive one at what is probably the premier all-weather track, and the way he was able to dictate and kick clear under Kieran O’Neill was pretty impressive. It was a really good piece of pace judgement from Kieran the horse responded really well. It would be a surprise if he didn’t continue to improve from here and develop into a nice handicapper.
It has been quite a quiet July for the team which is never much fun, but as mentioned in the previous update it something all of us trainers have to accept will happen at some point. It’s been great to see the horses turn a bit of a corner recently, with promising efforts from Lady De Bathe, Goldsmith, Asteverdi – who was perhaps only beaten by the Epsom track having improved plenty from her debut – and Emirates Angel. We’re really looking forward to this continuing into the upcoming autumn.
