David Ord reflects on a week of trials and it's a filly at Newmarket he thinks is the one who can make a significant impact in the first Classics.
It was probably a good week to sit out the trials.
Auguste Rodin and Little Big Bear were always going to do so and the ease in the ground meant Noble Style joined them in watching on from home.
Leading fillies Meditate and Tayhira did the same, connections of Sakheer opted for a racecourse gallop and Chaldean, not to be outdone, joined him.
He at least added a new twist, losing Frankie Dettori shortly after the stalls opened and then covering the seven furlongs of the Greenham without the nuisance of a jockey on his back.
If he goes on to win the Guineas, riderless racecourse gallops will be all the rage before Cheltenham next year, mark my words.
His absence robbed the Greenham of a lot of its lustre. It had a decisive winner in Isaac Shelby but he looks bound for the French 2000, while it’s hard to see Craven winner Indestructible making much of an impact on his return to Newmarket.
But two fillies did emerge with legitimate Classic claims.
Remarquee was the last to play her hand and is as low as 6/1 for the QIPCO 1000 Guineas after landing the Dubai Duty Free Stakes, or Fred Darling in old money, at Newbury.
The daughter of Kingman impressed with how she went through the contest but showed distinct signs of inexperience off the bridle, hanging away from Rob Hornby’s whip after one reminder then pricking her ears when asked to put the race to bed.
There’s a significant engine under the bonnet but only two weeks and a day to her first Classic test. Connections liked what they saw and felt on Saturday, though.
Trainer Ralph Beckett said: “It was everything I’d hoped for and more. She was green and running away and Rob dropped his stick by the time she was running away from the crowd.
“She doesn’t know very much, but she will know more after today and we will certainly go to Newmarket. Her mother wanted fast ground and maybe she handles this ground, but I don’t see fast ground being a problem. I think she is very good and she has got to go there on the back of that."
Hornby added: “She is a Classic filly. She is not short of speed and I think a mile will be right for her."
This is a team not known for mistaking their geese for swans, but the rawness of that performance tempers my own enthusiasm, along with concerns over quite what she’ll make of the Dip and the wide-open expanses of Newmarket.
Perhaps she’ll be fine and this trial will complete a fast-track education so she knows enough to showcase even more of her latent ability on the first Sunday on May.
But she's the same price as the Nell Gwyn winner Mammas Girl and, of all the trial winners, she’s the one I’m taking forward with me.
There are those, the Timeform race reporter for that race for one, who argue she may have been flattered at on Wednesday having being sheltered longest from the headwind by racing in last. But it’s what she did after being switched wide for racing room that really impressed.
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She produced a turn of foot that swept her clear in the final 100 yards to beat Fairy Cross by two-and-three-quarter lengths. It was a widening gap at the line and offered hope – no, significant hope – that despite one or two reservations on pedigree, that the daughter of Havana Gold will stay the mile in next month.
Mammas Girl crucially has experience of the Rowley Mile now and like the Fred Darling winner is two from two and open to more progress.
In a week when the star turn ran without his rider, it was the most compelling performance that counted in the form book and she looks a player in the 1000 Guineas.
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