John Ingles provides an overview of the key things to note on Friday.
Big-race entries point to Desert Castle
Newmarket’s seven-furlong contest for unraced two-year-olds (17:27) invariably features a well-fancied Godolphin runner and ‘Hot Trainer’ Charlie Appleby has won this contest three times since 2021, including last year with Al Zanati who went on to Group 3 success in France later in the season. In fact, all bar one of last year’s field went on to win races and this year’s contest featuring eight colts and with top stables represented is also likely to be one worth keeping an eye on.
Appleby’s representative this year is Desert Castle who is also the only runner holding big-race entries, having engagements in the Champagne Stakes and Vincent O’Brien National Stakes. He’s very much the part on pedigree too, being by Frankel out of the Flying Childers Stakes winner Sand Vixen. It’s significant that his dam’s two best foals have both been by Frankel, namely Dream Castle, a Group 1 winner in Dubai in the Jebel Hatta, and With The Moonlight, winner of the Pretty Polly at Newmarket and another who later did well in Dubai, both of those proving smart.
Other likely types are Farasan for the Gosdens, a close relative to their Craven Stakes winner this year Oxagon, and Sommood, a €380,000 breeze-up purchase for the Crisfords who have an excellent strike rate with their two-year-old newcomers this season, but Dream Castle appeals most.
Longer trip to suit Sergei Diaghilev
Several more two-year-olds with some big entries in the coming months meet in the Coolmore Stud Churchill Stakes at Gowran (19:20). This listed contest is normally run at Tipperary over seven and a half furlongs, but with that track temporarily closed, it’s now a mile contest and will test stamina more than at its usual venue given that Gowran is also a much stiffer track than Tipperary.
This will certainly be a different test for Sergei Diaghilev, who has run only over six furlongs so far, but the extra distance can be expected to suit Aidan O’Brien’s son of Wootton Bassett. He landed the odds from a couple of subsequent winners on his debut in a maiden at the Curragh in May when the pick of Ryan Moore from the stable’s three newcomers. As a result, he started favourite under the same rider for the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot and while finishing only ninth in that huge field, he remains with potential stepping up in trip.
Indeed, his smart brother and, until recently, stablemate Endorsement is a staying type, winning over nine furlongs and finishing second in the Zetland Stakes at two and successful over a mile and a half this year while holding entries over further still. If he’s anything to go by, Sergei Diaghilev ought to relish this stiffer test, in which he case he can prove too strong for Killarney winner Venetian Power, another with plenty of big-race entries.
‘Large P’ filly Syndicale can take next step
Racing returns to Haydock for the first time since May and the most interesting race on their evening card is the novice for two-year-old fillies over seven furlongs (20:03). This can go to the only winner in the field, Syndicale, for ‘Hot Trainer’ Karl Burke who will have missed Haydock’s abandoned fixtures more than most having trained more winners there than at any other turf track over the last five years.
Syndicale was given a low-key introduction, starting off in a fillies’ maiden at Wolverhampton last month, but as a half-sister to none other than Ombudsman, she was a stand-out on pedigree in the nine-runner field and sent off at odds of 1/2. Under the circumstances, she did well to make a successful debut, showing her inexperience with a slow start but making good headway in the straight and ending up being well on top at the finish despite having only half a length to spare over runner-up Jazzy Blue.
While the runner-up is yet to show herself any better than modest, Syndicale, given the 'large P' on her rating, clearly has the potential to leave that debut form a long way behind. It’s interesting that she holds a Group 1 entry in next month’s Moyglare Stud Stakes, a race which her stable has targeted with the likes of Fallen Angel (winner in 2023) and Venetian Sun (third last year), and if she can make it two from two here, she’s entitled to be chasing some black type somewhere.
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