Izzi Top

Izzi Top was a comfortable winner of the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes at The Curragh on Sunday, probably winning with a fair bit more in hand than the length-and-a-quarter winning margin, and she is very much still on the upgrade now as a four-year-old.

William Buick settled her in second, tracking the favourite Sapphire, with the four runners travelling in single file into the home straight. When Buick pulled her out around Sapphire and asked her to pick up, she did so almost instantly, with the result that Buick had to sit for a few strides alongside Sapphire before asking her to pick up again.

The eventual winning margin wasn’t that wide, but Izzi Top had effectively put the race to bed with her turn of foot a furlong and a half out, and she was almost certainly idling late on without company. Sapphire had proved herself to be a high-class filly this season by easily landing the Group 3 Noblesse Stakes on her previous run and, for all that the drop down to a mile and a quarter from a mile and a half may not have suited her ideally, she was readily brushed aside by Izzi Top, while the other two, I’m A Dreamer and Up, both very useful fillies, had no chance giving away ground to a horse with Izzi Top’s acceleration.

John Gosden’s filly is better than ever this season, she is improving race on race, her trainer said that she worked better than she had ever worked in the lead up to the Pretty Polly, and she handles this soft ground well. The Yorkshire Oaks could be next for her, she does get 12 furlongs, especially if the ground came up on the easy side at York. In this form, she would not be without a chance in an easy-ground Champion Stakes over a mile and a quarter against the colts.

1st July 2012