“It's good Scottish weather, madam. The rain is falling straight down… slightly to the side, like."
That deadpan line, delivered by Mel Gibson as William Wallace in Braveheart when he encounters his childhood friend Murron MacClannough and asks her to go riding with him in the pouring rain — which she does — may well have sprung to mind among the stewards and riders at Ayr on Saturday.
The track’s feature Flat race, the Ladbrokes Ayr Gold Cup, only got the go-ahead after a second inspection deemed the course fit for racing, following a torrential morning downpour that left water standing on the track.
I must be lucky for all the times I’ve been to Scotland, even in February and once for the Ayr Gold Cup, I’ve always had good weather and never recognised the ‘Even when it wasn’t raining it had just rained or was about to rain’ quote attributed to Scottish Australian musician Colin Hay.
Conditions weren’t so bad that the race had to be abandoned as it was in 2017 (when a replacement running took place at Haydock on ground that was almost as testing) but they weren’t far off with the winning time being the slowest since Funfair Wane in 2004 in the period ‘sprint king’ David Nicholls won the race four times in five years.
Funfair Wane won the Gold Cup off an official mark of 90 and recorded a 105 timefigure; the latest winner Pellitory, the third Ayr Gold Cup winner trained by David O’Meara, posted a 107 timefigure off an official mark of 98, just getting the better of Tuco Salamanca (114 timefigure off an official rating of 106) in a race dominated by those drawn high.
Funfair Wane was never the same after his Ayr Gold Cup win, failing to score in each of the next two seasons and having to drop into a seller at Hamilton to get his head in front again, but Pellitory, whose stable is very adept at keeping top-end handicappers on the go and in such good form throughout the season, is a much more consistent type and not having been long with his current yard might well be able to win another handicap again this autumn if connections can find ground as testing as it was here.
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For all the history bound up in the Gold Cup, first run as a long-distance race in 1804 before being shortened to six furlongs in 1908, Ayr’s feature Flat meeting opened on a remarkably mundane note, with five of the six handicaps won by horses rated 76 or lower.
Friday’s card was better, if still top heavy with low-quality handicaps, and finally produced a timefigure worthy of mention, with the 98 recorded by the juvenile Mussab in the listed Harry Rosebery Stakes providing belated justification for his stable targeting both the Norfolk Stakes (third of 21) and the Gimcrack (sixth of ten) when he was still a maiden.
A 102 performance rating isn’t the best in the race recent years – Beautiful Diamond posted a 104 in 2023 – but that 98 timefigure is the best since Prince Of Pillo (101) in 2022 and the second highest since Clem Fandango (102) in 2016 and he looks sure to be a leading player in the Cornwallis Stakes, particularly if the ground stays on the soft side.
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Discover Sporting Life Plus BenefitsThe other listed contest on the card, the Scottish Sprint EBF Fillies’ Stakes, required a 110 performance from Fluorescence to win it but the timefigure was a modest 84.
Besides Pellitory’s 107, Saturday’s card produced several decent performances if nothing outstanding on the clock, albeit the Ladbrokes sponsored Silver Cup which kicked off the card was well run and saw its winner Station X return a 98 timerating.
The only Group race on the card, the Firth Of Clyde for two-year-old fillies saw a host of ground-related non runners and didn’t take as much winning as initially seemed likely with Silent Beauty, whose only defeat came in the Albany Stakes, taking her record to three wins from four starts with a length-and-three-quarter win in a modest 86.
The listed Doonside Cup also produced a mediocre figure with Ed Walker’s Fast Tracker getting the better of mudlark Ice Max in a weak 80, and the fact the runner-up could race so freely and still beat the remainder handsomely, suggests the form isn’t up to much for all Fast Tracker won a couple of listed races in France last year.
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Discover Sporting Life Plus BenefitsFor any decent timefigures last week, and it wasn’t a high-quality week of racing in all honesty, with just four Group races In Britain and Ireland, as well as better weather and faster ground, you had to head south where Newbury hosted its Mill Reef fixture and Sandown and Newmarket also chimed in with some fair racing.
Indeed, the best winning figure of the week came at Sandown when Cerro Blanco made it three wins from four runs when winning the listed Fortune Stakes over a mile in 110. The Fortune is a listed race that has been used as a stepping stone to Group 1 success by several runners in the past few years, notably King of Change, Mostahdaf, Bayside Boy and Cicero's Gift, and in Cerro Blanco this year's renewal looks to have thrown up another winner who will prove significantly better than this grade after readily seeing off a pair of smart four-year-olds who in turn were well clear of the rest.
Cerro Blanco had raced only at seven furlongs previously, but looked well suited by step up to a mile as he took a marked step forward in form and time, looking a really nice prospect not just for this autumn but for next year too when he should make a worthy addition to a Group line-up, an area by the stable's own admission they've had a disappointing year this time around.
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Discover Sporting Life Plus BenefitsCerro Blanco’s trainer, Charlie Appleby, could hardly put a foot wrong after the Fortune, winning with five of his next six runners including the feature Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes with Nabati, the listed Dubai Duty Free Cup Stakes with Catullus and the Haynes Hanson & Clark Stakes with Bin Jahwar.
The presence of the Gimcrack winner Arapaho Gold under a penalty should theoretically have given a boost to the rather shaky standing of the Mill Reef, but whether the winner will prove as good a prospect next season as Cerro Blanco remains to be seen, winning a race containing plenty who had already been exposed at pattern level besides having been beaten twice in listed company already himself.
That said, the timefigure was 107, pretty much middling in the race over the last 20 years or so, and a well-run race back down at six furlongs seemed to get the best out of him. All the same, Nabati ran to a 4lb or so lower level than the stables’ 2025 winner Words Of Truth and his only win this year came in listed company at Sandown, so given the form of this year’s renewal is at the lower level of expected Group 2 performance that may be the level that Nabati ends up at too.
Catallus’ timefigure was 103. He’s already come a fair way this year but striding on back at seven furlongs (third in the Thoroughbred Stakes over a mile at Goodwood last time) prompted something better, quickening right away after going back to the front two furlongs out to score by three-and-a-half lengths. He'd likely be effective at a stiff six furlongs if tried which would open more options for a Group-race win his level of form would now warrant.
The Haynes Hanson & Clark Stakes remains famous for some of its early winners who included Rainbow Quest, Unfuwain, King’s Theatre and Nayef. Recent renewals haven’t been so projective towards Group level for all Irish Derby winner Westover finished second in the race in 2021, but Bin Jahwar looks the part, being big and imposing, and fittingly being by Ghaiyyath out of a mare by Nayef, is sure to be well suited by a mile-and-a-quarter and probably more next year.
Two other winners at Newbury also recorded three-figure tiemfigures, Balzac in the prestigious Dubai Duty Free Handicap and Garfield Shadow in one of the lesser events.
Derby also-ran Balzac was just one of two three-year-olds in the Duty Free, an age group that has now provided four winners since 2020, and a very narrow win in a 104 timefigure gives the Cambridgeshire claims of Gavriel, who’d beaten him so readily at Ascot, a major boost.
The draw looked to play a major part in Garfield Shadow’s race with all the first five home coming from the lowest seven stalls. The winner proved at least as good as ever as he got off the mark for the season from an easing mark, closed down close home in a 103 timefigure but always looking like holding on.
His owners Wathnan Racing also had the only other winner of the week to post over 100 on the clock, with Old Is Gold reaching 103 in a six-furlong handicap at Newmarket. A four-length winning margin is pretty impressive on fast ground at the trip and was his second successive win having scored at Goodwood earlier in the month.
He started favourite for the 2025 Windsor Castle after an impressive win in the Two-Year-Old Trophy at Beverley, and finally seems to be hitting the heights he once promised, for all he might have been at an advantage in being drawn in the stall right next to the rail.
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