How good is Bolshoi Ballet?
Everywhere you looked last week there were trials for the Cazoo-sponsored Derby and the Oaks but the markets for both at the end of the week showed that there was only one that mattered, the Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial, whose winner Bolshoi Ballet now trades at 7/4 after scorching home by six lengths.
Officials at Lingfield racecourse might dispute that statement given that the last time (2019) they were allowed to stage their biggest turf day of the season the winners of their trials, Anthony Van Dyck and Anapurna, both followed up at Epsom, but from a time perspective Bolshoi Ballet took a big step forward from his Ballysax performance and swatted his Classic rivals aside.
His 120 timefigure is only 1lb shy of those posted by the first three home in the 2000 Guineas, among whom only Poetic Flare might stay a mile and a half, but on top of that the 4lb sectional upgrade he came away with hikes him up to 124. Derrinstown winners have tended to skim the crossbar at Epsom in recent years, but none of those that have gone on to Epsom since Timeform started returning Irish Flat timefigures in 2015 came close to registering a 120 at Leopardstown and 124 is pretty much Derby winning standard these days.
By Galileo, responsible for four of the last eight Derby winners, Bolshoi Ballet looks to have a fine combination of speed, stamina and temperament as well as, according to Aidan O’Brien in a post-race TV interview, in a phrase not giggled since the Chippendales last played a live show, a ”good pair of hips on him”. Next time I go to the races – or, god forbid, the Chippendales - I’ll now know what to look for.
Second best of the Derby Trials on the clock was the Chester Vase won by Youth Spirit. Won by a Derby winner (Ruler Of The World) as well as two Derby seconds since 2010 – all of them by Galileo, unsurprisingly – Youth Spirit maybe didn’t have a quality field to beat but a timefigure of 112 is pretty much up to scratch for a Chester Vase winner in recent years.
The furlong-by-furlong sectional times rather confirm that Fancy Man’s rider Sean Levey had a ‘Harry Skelton rush’ approaching the straight, while Sandhurst was slightly compromised by being short of room on the home turn, but all things considered Youth Spirit was marginally the best on the day. The other ‘Derby Trial’ at Chester, the Dee Stakes, won by El Drama looks pretty irrelevant so far as the Derby is concerned, but the Novibet-backed Lingfield version won by Third Realm in a timefigure of 107 has more substance to it.
This looked a race where track craft played a deciding part, no bad thing with Epsom in mind, with the winner, who was much improved from his Nottingham reappearance, handling the home turn and downhill run-in far better than the runner-up Adayar who we bigged up last time but more than anything else looked in need of a more conventional track than he encountered here.
As far as the fillies were concerned, it’s unlikely that Aidan O’Brien, trainer of the current Oaks favourite Santa Barbara, lost much sleep over goings on in the Oaks Trial at Lingfield or the Cheshire Oaks at Chester.
Form pick Dubai Fountain showed she had trained on well with a position-aided victory over the slightly unfortunate Zeyaadah (caught out of her ground a bit) at Chester in a timefigure of 100, but the Lingfield contest was an altogether messier affair (timefigure 55) with Sherbet Lemon edging out two fillies, Save A Forest and Ocean Road, who come out equally as well on sectionals.
Wednesday’s Tattersalls Musidora at York, featuring Zeyaadah’s stable-companion Teona and Sherbet Lemon’s Wetherby conqueror Noon Star, promises to be a much more informative trial. Odd as it might seem looking to Wetherby for Oaks clues, Noon Star was comfortably the best filly in her win, covering the last three and two furlongs a fair bit quicker than anything else under a very confident ride. Her 98 timefigure (upgraded to 102 after incorporating sectionals) was a high one for the course, and being by - you’ve guessed it - Galileo out of the Oaks runner-up Midday, few matings could have been better designed with Epsom in mind.
Less a trial than an end in itself these days, the Lily Agnes at Chester, the first ‘big’ two-year-old race of the season, went for the first time in a while to an above-average sort in Navello. Copper Night in 2016 was the last juvenile who made it to Royal Ascot having won the Lily Agnes, but his no show there was much in keeping with other recent winners who have largely sunk without trace in Berkshire.
That said, Navello’s six-length winning margin is well above average for the race in recent years as is his 95 timefigure. That currently puts him in third place among the leading two-year-old colts on time behind Chipotle, who became the first youngster this year to register a 100 timefigure when beating second-best The Gatekeeper at the grandly titled Royal Ascot Trials Day at Ascot a couple of weeks back.
Chipotle and The Gamekeeper’s timefigures could reasonably have been a bit higher – possibly as high as 105 - had the view been taken that the ground was consistent across the straight course, but just as likely was that the ground under the stand rail where Chipotle raced was a shade faster than the middle where most of the other straight-course action took place. If it wasn’t, his performance really was a Royal Ascot trial as he wouldn’t be far away in the Norfolk Stakes if repeating that performance, but stand-side runners looked to hold sway again last weekend.
Whereas eight individual colts have reached 90 on the timefigure scale, only two fillies - Contarelli Chapel and Thunder Love, the latter like Navello trained by the emerging George Boughey – have reached that level.
However, with Royal Ascot on the horizon, there is a filly – Silver Bullet Lady - who I suspect has shown more than that pair despite her debut-winning timefigure at Salisbury coming in at just 80. ‘The draw is history after a furlong’ is a phrase that was often poked in fun at the draw aficionados at Timeform back in the day, but for a two-year-old having his or her first run it can take a lot longer than that for inexperience to run its course and that was the case with Roger Charlton’s filly who blew the start and only really started to get the message after crossing the path over three furlongs out.
Timeform’s own sectionals have her coming home easily the fastest from that point, figures corroborated by those available on the RacingTV website which also show her running by far the fastest last quarter mile and final furlong.
Timeform’s upgrade calculations rightly make her the best horse at the weights on the day but throw out her first furlong sectional and recalculate her upgrade using her last two-furlong and final furlong times and she comes out, on the calculations I use, around 98.
It wasn’t as if Silver Bullet Lady didn’t beat anything either – the runner-up, Out In Yorkshire, had posted an 89 timefigure, the third best by a filly this season, when running away with a Beverley novice on her only previous start. A step up to six furlongs will suit her and it wouldn’t surprise me if she is Albany bound.