Dougan

Dougan did really well to finish third in the six-furlong handicap at Newmarket on Sunday.

Settled at the back of the field through the early stages of the race by Andrea Atzeni, and dropped in towards the stands rail behind runners from stall eight, David Evans’ horse had a lot of ground to make up as they passed the two-furlong pole. He picked up nicely from there, and he ran through the final furlong strongly, finishing best of all to take third place behind Englishman and Seeking Magic, coming clear of the fourth horse.

This was a race in which it was probably an advantage to race handily. The first, second, fourth and fifth all raced handily, so Dougan can probably be marked up a fair bit on the bare form of the race. The race was run in a good time too, just 0.25secs/furlong slower than standard and the second fastest time of the day after Minding in the 1000 Guineas.

This was just Dougan’s eighth race ever. Winner of three of his five races last year, all three wins gained on Polytrack, he started off this year nicely by finishing a close-up second behind Supasta in a handicap at Wolverhampton in February over seven furlongs. Given a nice break after than and dropped in trip to six furlongs, he ran out an easy winner of a Kempton handicap in early April off a mark of 85. He was raised 8lb for that win to Sunday’s mark of 93, but his run on Sunday showed that he was well up to that type of mark. Six furlongs appears to be his trip, at least for now, and he is probably best-suited to being held up off a fast pace. He has never raced at Ascot, but he will be of interest there, given his strong form on Polytrack – his record reads 112121 – and the correlation between form on Polytrack and form on Ascot’s straight track.

1^st May 2016