Horses To Follow » Triple Aspect

Triple Aspect

Triple Aspect ran a cracker to finish second to Ialysos in the Group 3 Coral Charge on Eclipse day at Sandown last Saturday. On the sprint track at Sandown, you usually want to be drawn high, towards the far rail, so Triple Aspect’s draw in stall 11 of 11 looked like a definite advantage on the face of it. However, such is William Haggas’s colt’s style of running, it turned out to be a disadvantage. He had been outpaced over the same course and distance before he had swooped late to collar Jargelle three weeks previously, and he was outpaced in the early stages again here, with the result that Liam Jones had to forsake his position on the far rail and switch out among horses in order to be able to deliver a challenge. And it looked like he might get there as well a furlong out, but the Greek horse got a lovely split on the far rail and quickened through it nicely, leaving Triple Aspect to have to make do with the runner-up spot this time.

It was a little worrying that Triple Aspect went fairly sharply to his left inside the final 50 yards, but he wasn’t the only horse to do that on this track this weekend, and it was the first time that he had ever done something like that, so he is forgiven. This was just the sixth run of his life, his first against his elders, and he performed admirably. Sandown’s five furlongs is a stiff five furlongs, and he has needed every yard of it now on his last two starts, so it makes sense to step him up to six furlongs again now, a distance over which he won twice last year as a juvenile. He is in the Sprint Cup at Haydock on 5th September, and that may not be an overly ambitious entry. Three-year-olds have won three of the last six renewals of that contest, and Triple Aspect would be of interest if he lined up in it. In the interim, he will be of big interest wherever he runs next. Ideally it will be over six furlongs.

4th July 2009