Never So Brave won the Sky Bet City Of York Stakes | report and replay

Never So Brave has gone from strength to strength since joining Andrew Balding on the retirement of Sir Michael Stoute.

A winner of the Buckingham Palace at Royal Ascot on his second start for Balding, Never So Brave took the step up to pattern company in his stride when winning the Group 2 Summer Mile at the same venue and now has a Group 1 to his name with the Sky Bet City Of York elevated to that status for the first time.

There was plenty of pace to the race with course specialist Quinault cutting out some decent fractions, leading Audience and the Sussex Stakes winner Qirat and it was no surprise that the eventual principals all came from off the pace.

Quinault stayed straight down the middle whereas Rab Havlin switched Audience to the stands' side early in the straight and he gave evens favourite Rosallion and Exactly something to aim at.

Rosallion, who had to race wide early from his wide draw, was always quite hard at work on this drop back to seven furlongs and had to switch inside Audience in the closing stages where he came close together with Never So Brave.

Maranoa Charlie was also in the mix while Lake Forest, who had to wait for room, finished with a flourish as the four horses headed to the line together to produce an exciting finish.

Never So Brave and Oisin Murphy came out on top by half-a-length from Lake Forest with Maranoa Charlie a head back in third and Rosallion a further head away in fourth.

Anna Lisa Balding told Racing TV: "He's just taken it all in his stride and a big credit to the lads who look after him and ride him at home because he's a little bit quirky and to get him to come and win on a big day like this is such a great result for the team.

"Dropping back to seven you're not quite sure how versatile they are but I think he did it well today. Although Oisin did feel in the future a mile might be the right spot for him."

When asked what those future plans might entail, Balding replied: "I only just literally put the saddle on so straight back to the trainer on that one!"

Disappointing, absolutely

Rosallion had missed the Jacques le Marois in France last weekend due to a bruised foot but a notably downcast Richard Hannon was not looking for excuses even when the wide draw was put to him as a possible reason.

"It clearly wasn't a help," he replied, "but he didn't travel like he normally does, he didn't really pick up like he normally does. Disappointing, absolutely.

"He's not disgraced himself, a long way from that. We'll get home, have a chat and see where we go but disappointing.

"He looked great in the parade ring, he was relaxed. Perfectly sound, really happy with him coming into the race. He knuckled down under pressure, he tried his best; we'll see."

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