Basaltico

Basaltico was one of the more interesting runners in the Group 3 Glorious Stakes at Goodwood on Friday, an Italian Luca Cumani recruit who had run really well to finish third behind Veracity and Mourilyan in a good race over two miles at Nad Al Sheba in February on his previous start, his last for Herman Brown. There was a lot to like about that run in Dubai. He made eye-catching progress from the rear and arrived as a real threat to Veracity at the top of the home straight before the Godolphin horse just out-stayed him. The two-mile trip seemed to stretch him, so he was interesting dropping back down to a mile and a half. However, not much went right on Friday. Christophe Lemaire does not know Goodwood like most of his weigh room colleagues in the UK do – and it is a track that takes a lot of knowing – and Basaltico was never in the right place. He doesn’t look like a horse who is blessed with the instant acceleration that he needed to have to take the fleeting gaps as they arrived, and he ended up just running in behind horses, and running on a little when it was all too late.
On the face of it, this was a disappointing run. He finished seven lengths behind Illustrious Blue and Warringah, but he would have been an awful lot closer with a clearer run. Furthermore, those two are not at all bad. Illustrious Blue loves Goodwood and was putting in a career best, while Warringah is well fancied for the Ebor. Also, it is not unreasonable to expect significant improvement from Basaltico for his first run for Cumani, given how much his Italian recruits invariably come on for a run, and this trip of a mile and a half may have been on the sharp side. Basaltico is entered in the Geoffrey Freer at Newbury on Saturday, and he would be very interesting in that if he took his chance in it. The extended one-mile-five-furlong trip should be just about ideal, and he should be under-rated after an ostensibly disappointing first run in the UK. He is interesting now.

31st July 2009