Nic Doggett provides an overview of the key things to note on Thursday.
Strong book of rides for Juddmonte retained rider
There's a welcome uplift in quality ahead of the weekend's action on Thursday as Salisbury's IRE-Incentive, It Pays To Buy Irish Dick Poole Fillies' Stakes card takes centre stage.
Aptly, six of the 11 declared runners for the feature at 16:14 were foaled in Ireland, though it's a slight surprise to see no Irish-trained fillies making the journey across the Irish Sea for this Group 3; the 2019 runner-up Millisle, who went down by a short-head, was the most recent.
However, there is one notable jockey across from Ireland: Colin Keane.
His ride in this race, the Rod Millman-trained C&D winner Fillipas, has something to find on weight-adjusted ratings, but shouldn't be discounted on ground that could encourage further improvement.
As well as Hereward in the fillies' maiden at 15:03, Keane rides Juddmonte newcomer Concurrent in the preceding race (15:39), and the same owners' Shipbourne in the competitive mile handicap at 17:24. The last-named won well for the rider on his heavy-ground debut last October and is clearly better than when shaping as if amiss at Newmarket back in July.
Another off the Kingsclere jockey production line
This season's apprentice jockeys' championship is currently led by Jack Callan (40 wins) whose agent has clearly been busy, with the son of Neil picking up 68 more rides than his nearest challenger Ashley Lewis (33) and 82 more than Jack Nicholls (27).
The best strike-rate is actually held by Conor Whiteley whose 19 winners have come at 17%, though the most profitable young rider to follow has been Rhys Elliott whose 10% strike-rate has returned a level stakes profit of 202.67.
None of those (mainly northern-based jockeys) are riding in Salisbury's opening Al Basti Equiworld, Dubai Apprentice Handicap (13:53), but I've been impressed with Alfie Redman over the last few months - particularly effective on Naval Cop at Chepstow on Monday - and clearly his time with Andrew Balding is rubbing off on him, as it did with the likes of David Probert, Jason Watson, William Buick and Oisin Murphy.
Decalogue was slowly away under Whitely when third behind Stormy Music at Newmarket last month, and connections were clearly impressed with the ride that the winner received as they have booked Redman for this ride. With a sharper start, and that form working out well, he should prove hard to beat.
Quidhampton Maiden to deliver once more
A lot of fine racehorses have won at Salisbury down the years, the likes of Look Here (2008) and Sir Percy (2005) following in the footsteps of the great Brigadier Gerard and Mill Reef in the 70s. Going further back, Gimcrack (1768) and Eclipse (1769) also won at the course.
It's unlikely that any in the British EBF Quidhampton Maiden Fillies' Stakes (15:39) will reach those heights – though you never know – but it looks a fine race with a lot of interesting newcomers joining the exciting once-raced pair of runners-up Miss Miniver ('sectional' flag) and Thi Qar ('horse in focus' flag) on the starting grid.
Improvement is anticipated from Costa Verde who costa lot (525,000 guineas as a yearling) and is related to multiple Group race winner Royal Champion, but was too green to do herself justice on debut in July. Rubyroo and Learning have also shown ability, the latter having started favourite for a Deauville conditions race worth £70,000 to the winner.
The pot here is smaller (though still above the usual rate), with Ellavara representing Ralph Beckett who has won three of the last six renewals, alternating with Miss Miniver's trainer Roger Varian who has landed two. A 450,000 guineas yearling, her half-sister Barnavara made a winning debut for Jessica Harrington before later winning the Prix de l'Opera, so there's plenty of class there.
The aforementioned Keane rode Concurrent's half sister Juncture to finish second on debut, so should have an idea of how she compares, whilst fellow Juddmonte runner Quintana's dam Quadrilateral won all three starts at two (including the Fillies' Mile) but her only other offspring Quadrillion hasn't cut much mustard yet.
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