Ascot on the mind with juveniles in good form
It’s not like anyone forgets how difficult it is to train a Royal Ascot winner, but the closer we get to the opening day the more the mind becomes focused on just how competitive a few days the upcoming meeting is! It may perhaps be a little early to be focusing entirely on the best week in the racing calendar, but for those of us without a Classic runner at Epsom those five days in Berkshire are very much in the forefront of our mind.
We are very grateful to potentially have a number of runners on the week, all being well. Our juveniles, currently headed by the Ascot Trial winner Maximum Impact, are a nice bunch and a good number of them have won well enough to put themselves in the frame for at least an entry – debut winners Golden Arrow and Majestic Beauty, and the unbeaten Hala Emaraaty in particular. The last named showed he’d progressed from his hard-earned debut success to win again at Redcar last week, showing a good attitude under a good ride from Thore Hammer Hanson in a race that was likely above average for the grade. He will stay further in time, and a stiff track should show him in his best light. He’s proving to be very well bought by Ahmad Al Shaikh having cost just £14,000 as a breezer!
It was encouraging to see the form of our Havana Grey two-year-old Golden Arrow given a nice boost by Golden Mind winning a competitive Leicester race yesterday afternoon. The Hamilton form looks pretty good at this point as the second had shown a good bit going into the race, and as a 200k breezer by the juvenile sire of the moment it’s hard not to get a little excited about how far he could go! Despite being a breeze-up graduate he displayed more than a hint of greenness during the race, and gave the impression there was more to look forward to.
