Stipulate

Stipulate impressed with the manner in which he ran away from his from his rivals in the Feilden Stakes at Newmarket last Wednesday.

He pulled fairly hard through the early stages of the race, but he travelled well once he dropped the bridle (which wasn’t actually until they had gone about half a mile). He travelled well past the three-furlong marker, he was just a little hemmed in behind the favourite Perennial with Pembrey towards his outside. Perennial just edged to his left as they went into the Dip, that allowed Tom Queally to switch inside on Stipulate, and once he was in the clear he picked up in really good fashion, showing a really nice turn of foot to put several lengths between himself and the rest of the field very quickly.

The time wasn’t great, the horse in second was rated 90 and the horse in fourth was rated only 85 (Stipulate himself was rated just 91 coming into this), but the visual impression was strong, despite there appearing to be little stable confidence in his chances. Henry Cecil says that the horse was just immature last year, he didn’t quite go on from his narrow debut success as well as they would have hoped, but he can continue to progress at three now that he has strengthened up over the winter.

The Dee Stakes is apparently on his agenda now and it is not stretching it to think that he could improve enough to be a Derby contender. It may be that he is going to be at his best when there is at least a bit of cut in the ground, he does have a round knee action and the fairly loose ground here suited him well. That said, he handled fast ground well enough last year and that may not be much of an issue for him. He could be good.

18th April 2012