Vow

Vow did remarkably well to win a division of the Whitley Stud Maiden Fillies’ Stakes at Newbury on Friday on her racecourse debut from the position she was in at the top of the home straight.

She was drawn widest of all, which isn’t ideal over 10 furlongs at Newbury, and it just took her a while to move across to join the rest of the field from the stalls. She tucked in at the back of the field after a furlong or so, she looked green through the early stages of the race, she was last as they made their way out of the back straight, and she had to be niggled along at various stages of the turn around into the home straight. She had a lot of ground to make up from the turn in, but she just kept on galloping on for pressure all the way up the straight and got up to win in a really encouraging debut, despite the fact that victory looked most unlikely at all stages of the race until inside the final furlong. Her effort was even more commendable given that nothing else really made any significant progress from the second half of the field in the race, it was hard to make ground up in conditions which got more and more testing through the day, especially for an inexperienced filly.

This maiden has been won by Islington, Folk Opera and Oaks winner Eswarah in recent years, and Vow’s trainer William Haggas won it with Dancing Rain last year, who also went on to win the Oaks. The Oaks is a long way away for Vow at this stage, but the Epsom race is surely on Haggas’s radar again. Vow is a half-sister to the talented Beaten Up and to Harris Tweed, so she should have plenty of stamina, and a mile and a half should be well within her range. The ground was soft here, and she is by Motivator, she has to prove herself on better ground, but the time was good for a debutante, significantly faster than the second division of this maiden and faster even than the conditions race run later on the card. Vow could easily make up into an Oaks filly, and odds of 20/1 about her at present are interesting.

20th April 2012